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Before the Lunar New Year, we all anticipate for the festival to arrive. Just like the Thanksgiving and the Christmas, there is a long preparation before-hand. However, unlike the western, on the eve there are still a lot of people working to earn the last bit before going home. As many business-men will self-declare themselves for a long 15 days holiday to have an annual rest after a long year of work.

While Singapore, Chinatown it has the longest history of having night markets during the festive season. Many would only head down to enjoy the lively vibes a couple week before the Lunar New Year. While some would also head down to Chinatown for the countdown on the Lunar New Year eve as well. Therefore, many Chinese(s) only feel like the year started only after the Lunar New Year.

This year, both Joe and I decide to go to the night market to do the last minute shopping on the Lunar New Year eve. As every year we will join the crowds for some cheap bargain as you would be unable to believe how cheap it can be. We simply stuck in between the human traffic and couldn’t take more photographs.

red and orange lighted up the streets

the street flooded with shoppers

everyone is selling at half price or lower to get home for the reunion dinner

So every year we have two new years, one during the first day of the year and one during the first day of the Chinese calendar. This year is very different than usual, usually, on the first day, it will be near to empty around my house (as people are busy visiting). However, this year it’s still very crowded on the streets.

Since I wasn’t visiting, so I end up practicing baking at home. Please stay tuned for more amazing recipes.

Anyway, it’s always nice to have some holiday. Wishing year one great health and a Happy Lunar New Year!

Over the past few weeks has been super insane, we are busy with preparing for Lunar New Year! It’s so significantly important for the Chineses, just like Christmas for the Caucasian. We have been doing a lot of shopping, cooking, and preparation. This year both Joe and I decided to make some goodies to give away – pineapple tarts.

Totoro is an Instagram character that people love too put on their food. Because of its distinct color and shape, it is always easy to make them into food. There Totoro Pineapple Tarts takes longer to make then the usually ones as there is lots of details to take note of, however the final product is worth it.

Pineapple tarts are basically a cookie with a pineapple filling, in a buttery and crumbly pastry. They are mostly referred as pineapple tarts in Malaysia and Singapore.

The filling is from fresh and juicy pineapple, which is cooked and reduced to a golden-color pineapple jam filling. No words can describe just how awesome they taste, and I can’t think of any, any, cookies that would top this. Simple as that!

We have always wanted to make pineapple tart for the new year, however, we always didn’t have the chance to. With lots of try and error, these time will finally, successfully make them. To make them start by making the pineapple filling ahead to let it cool.

Cut the stalk off the pineapple and follow the skin. Make sure all divits are removed. Slice the pineapple flesh into pieces and blend in a blender until they become the puree. Add the pineapple puree and cloves to a non-stick pot and cook on medium heat, constantly stirring to avoid burning.

When the pineapple is almost dry, add the sugar and lemon juice, stir to combine well. Lower the heat to simmer and continue to stir until the pineapple filling turns golden in color and becomes very sticky. Transfer the pineapple filling out, remove the cloves and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Cream the butter and condensed milk until light and fluffy. Add in the egg yolk one at a time, and beat until well combined. Mix in the flour slowly to form the pastry dough. The dough is ready when it no longer sticks to your hands. Take 1/5 of the dough and colored it with white coloring, and the remaining using a bit of black coloring.

Divide the pineapple filling and dough into 100 portions. Roll them both into balls. To wrap, use your palms to roll each dough and then flatten it.

Add a pineapple ball in the middle and fold the edges of the dough up to cover the filling. Finish it off by rolling it into a round ball. Shape it into an avocado shape, add in the details of the tummy and ears.

Place the pineapple cookie on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Using the back of a paring knife, cut the inverted “V” shape on the cookie. Repeat the same until all ingredients are used up.

Bake in a preheated oven at 330F (165C) for about 20-22 minutes or until they turn golden brown. Transfer them out and cool on a wire crack before storing in an airtight container.

Hope you try some of these bad boys! Share with us your version! Take a photo of yours, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us, anything. We love to see yours!

Title: Heart

I don’t paint people every day, sometimes I do paint randomly. Mixing brushes and colours and it could be where your creatives begin. That’s what I believed in as an artist and a creative.

We are sending this hear to everyone, today wasn’t a day just for lovers but everyone we want to appreciate they love for. There goes, “be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books – especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day.’ John Wooden

We figured Valentine’s Day would be the perfect opportunity to get wordy on some heart-shaped cookies, so these Conversation Heart Sugar Cookies were born! We went a little hog wild making up phrases or putting our favorite lyrics on them.

For the basic sugar cookie recipe, you’ll need one that makes for a firm cookie that won’t spread at all as it bakes. This recipe held up like a champ! Start with that to create your plain dough.

Once your dough is made, separate it into as many sections as you’d like different colors of cookie. We separated into three sections. Color each different section of cookie with some food coloring. We colored each part differently with these drop amounts:

bright pink = 6 drops mauve

yellow = 4 drops yellow

tael = 4 drops tael

Drop the coloring onto the ball of dough that you’re working with and knead it until the coloring is evenly spread. Do this with all colors. Once the colors are mixed, lightly flatten each dough ball and wrap it in its own individual plastic wrap. Chill all dough for at least 1 hour; we let ours chill overnight.

Once the dough is chilled, remove it from the refrigerator about 5 minutes before you plan on rolling it out to soften a bit. Prep your baking pans with a bit of nonstick spray and set your oven to 350. Flour your surface and rolling pin generously.

Roll one color of dough out to about 1/4″ thick. Cut out your cookie shapes and place them on the baking sheet. (We strongly recommend putting them on the baking sheet before stamping the letters into them!)

Then go to town with your cookie imprinting set and make them say whatever you want! This would actually be a super fun thing to do at a Valentine’s (or Galentine’s!) party. You could do it with kids, too — set up the cookies and let them stamp words to their hearts’ content. Stamp out all of your messages and place the cookies in the oven to bake!

The recipe calls for 8-12 minutes in the oven but we baked ours for about 6 minutes. Just keep a close eye on them, as they’re pretty delicate and will burn easily.

Ingredients|

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

Zest of 2 lemons, divided

2 tbsp of lavender buds

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp of baking powder

1 egg yolk

Method |

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. In a large mixing bowl, mix the lavender and lemon zest in the granulated sugar. Leave it for 20 minutes for it to infuse.

Start by mixing the flour, baking powder, and salt evenly in a food processor. Then add in the soft butter, beat the mixture it until looks like a coarse sand before adding in the sugar mix. Lastly, add egg yolk and vanilla extract, mix it until the dough comes together. Wrap using a clear wrap and leave it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

When it is done, on a lightly floured surface roll out shortbread until 1/4-inch thick. Cut out shapes and transfer to a baking sheet.Imprint the text of yours on the cookies. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Hope you try some of these bad boys! Share with us your version! Take a photo of yours, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us, anything. We love to see yours!

There is a madness trend out there all about fairy lights. Moreover, fairy lights are no longer reserved for outside barbecues or the Christmas tree. Take inspiration from these beautiful Pinterest post and use them to make your bedrooms look completely magical.

Whether you call them rice lights, fairy lights or string lights, it would be rare for you to find a home without these. You could just string these along with a wall or you could dress them up a little for a more mature look. A little string of them, it can blink up your room when you didn’t want to use the main light or lamp.

Sometimes, the intensity of fairy lights can be a little too bright. One way of handling this would be with a dimmer switch. Another way to soften the brightness of fairy lights is to hang it behind a sheer curtain. Use this to define an accent wall or to create a headboard a part of your bedroom décor.

People honor their love for one another by spending time together and sending flowers. The ritual of expressing love and affection goes far beyond the courtly love of Chaucer’s time. He may have been the first person to link the Catholic Saint Valentine with romance, but today Valentine’s Day is a time to show appreciation for family and friends as well.

Since my grade school days, I’ve likely passed around candy hearts with Valentine’s Day messages. Now that I am older and muValentine’s card list is smaller, thus I have more time to fully express myself.

Other than sending the message on to the things people love to receive is the flower, especially roses. There are lots of meaning when it comes to the color and number of roses you give. When it comes to loves red color is the one you go for. Guys out there be careful of what you buy. However, for me, the best flower are those that are still in the soil.

We absolutely love meringues. They are so light, airy, melt in your mouth but crunchy at the same time. The texture of these cookies is amazing. Since Valentine’s Day is approaching, we thought it would be the perfect time to make mini peach stripe Meringue Kisses.

We don’t really buy into the idea of Valentine’s day and we’re not keen on the idea of forced romance. When it comes to that kind of thing, we prefer a little more spontaneity. However, we do enjoy playing with food coloring and given that at this time of year it is practically mandatory to dye everything peach we might as well make the most of it!

They may sound and look fancy but they are incredibly easy and take less than 15 minutes to make using just a few ingredients. Also, the homemade version of this cookie is so much better than the store-bought kind. You will be so happy you tried them and your family will love you!

Ingredients |

4 egg whites at room temperature

⅛ tsp. cream of tartar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup superfine sugar (baker’s sugar found at your market in a carton)

peach food coloring

Method |

Bake the sugar on a baking paper on 180C till the side of the sugar turn browning.

Heat the oven to 100C. Beat the egg whites using an electric whisk or stand mixer in a large, spotlessly clean bowl until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually, a tablespoon at a time, whisking well after each addition, until all the sugar has been added. Continue to whisk the meringue for a few minutes more until it is very thick and glossy and forms stiff peaks when you lift the whisk out of the bowl.

Fit a piping bag with a large plain or star nozzle. Turn the bag inside-out, either over a jug or vase. Use a (clean!) artists paintbrush to paint stripes of the gel coloring down the inside of the bag.

Fill the bag with the meringue and twist the top closed. Use a little meringue mix to stick the greaseproof paper to the baking trays (this makes it easier to pipe) and pipe small ‘kisses’, slightly spaced apart on the trays, I like to do a couple of different sizes.

Bake for about 45 minutes, but be aware that they could take up to two hours depending on your oven (mine took 1 hour for teeny ones and two for larger ones). They are ready when they can be lifted off the paper in one piece – if the bottom comes away they aren’t ready yet.

Take them out of the oven and let them sit for a couple of minutes before trying to lift them off the paper, they should have become firm and peel off the paper in one piece, if they aren’t ready yet put them back in the oven for another 15 minutes then check again.

Cool and store in an airtight container.

How are you planning to celebrate Valentine Day? Whatever you do, ensure that you try my recipe or one of the many recipes down below! Share with us your version! Take a photo of yours, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us, anything. We love to see yours!

Another week of disaster – tons of works and coming festivals have been overloading my shoulder weight. Therefore, I haven’t been able to work on any paintings lately. Hence, this week I would like to share a commercial portrait that I did a while back. One of the pieces that I feel so much love in it.

This lovely couple that I know – they are the most lovable pair ever. To be inspired to paint this portrait, the lady share with me tons of stories to celebrate their joy. I’m so fortunate to present this to their anniversary, to be part of their joy.

The one thing I always learned from the people who engage me to paint for them, they taught me, “There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”

Do you ever hear a song that you just can’t stop listening to? So much it becomes obsessive to the point you block your own social settings in Spotify so no one can see just how many times you’ve played it today… I’m feeling this way about terrazzo. I’m working on a few projects that use this patterning at the moment but I’m holding them back so I don’t look totally obsessed and you don’t get unbelievably bored by it all!

I’ve always been drawn to a random pattern. The control freak in me loves that you have a certain amount of control over creating this. You can choose the colors and concentration of the pieces but you just never know exactly how it’s going to come out.

It gives you the feeling you have been instrumental in the pattern creation, but without any of the responsibility. You can’t criticise yourself for putting anything in the ‘wrong place’ or do it again just with that piece moved slightly to the left. It is what it is. That lets us appreciate the look as a whole rather than as individual elements.

Maybe this is the reason I’m so drawn to it. Instead of scrutinizing and finding fault it’s about accepting what’s there and seeing how it’s uniqueness is its beauty. (Are we getting way too deep for a DIY post about soap?) Either way, these soaps are a cute addition to my bathroom and I hope you love them as much as I do!

You can spray these with alcohol spray to finish and then wrap them as gifts or pop them into your own soap dish (that’s what I’ll be doing!) I love these colors but I might make a black and white version too.

Last week we have shared with you Coconut cake with mango puree for Valentine’s Day. However, if you and your friends are not fans of food why not try this Handmade Terrazzo Soap?

Materials |

Melt and Pour Soap

Concentrated Food Colouring

Alcohol spray

Method |

Add small drops of food coloring and a carbon capsule (to make black) into individual plastic cups. Melt the soap and let it cool for a couple of minutes, then pour it into the cups (about halfway full) and mix. Leave these to set in the fridge for an hour or two.

Chop up the set soap into rough uneven sections. I’ve added some clear soap as well to add areas that are more translucent within the finished soaps. You can spray these blocks with alcohol spray to stop the color seeping later.

Melt the white soap (and add any essential oils you like) then take a handful of soap blocks and add them to the mailing tube. Cover these with the white soap. Repeat this step until you run out of either soap bits or the white soap (or you reach the top of the tube!) Leave this to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours. The mold should be cool when the soap is set.

Dry off the soap and using a knife cut the tube into slices.

What colors do you think would look amazing as a terrazzo soap? Let me know in the comments below and I might make them! Share with us your version! Take a photo of yours, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us, anything. We love to see yours!

It’s always fun to play around with colors, everyone love colors, don’t we? If you are staying small spaces like we do, having limited space it hard to play with hues as it might make the space smaller or even cluttered. So, what if we split them into two – horizontally, vertically or even diagonally?

The two-toned walls have always been the trend for many years. The horizontal lines just bring two colors to one place. The blue-and-white wall in is one of my favorites. It divides the room like wainscoting, but without having to paint all those tricky little ridges.

However, there are lesses inspiration for painting them vertically and diagonally. When I found them out it amazed me even more. By having a white ceiling and have it paint colored based it help your room look brighter on your eye level thus allow your room having a classic look of an English house. While having a half of your bedroom painted with a darker hue allows your room to create a new dimension.

And for lovers who love bright and bold hues, but worried that putting a vibrant color across all four walls, from floor to ceiling might be too much? Try taking the intense shade just halfway up the wall! Pair it with a gentle neutral up top – think white or light grey – to soften the saturation.

Photogrammetry is part of our life, we decided to share our everyday life journal irregularly. To document our travel journal, be it locally and overseas. For the past two weeks, the town is buzzing with the House of Mirrors. We have been to the one last year at Melbourne, it was astonishing experiences, with little crowds and no time limits. Therefore, we weren’t sure if we would like to rejoin the crowds in Singapore.

On the last day of the festival, we decided we should at least get out during the evening to join the breeze before the festival end. We have been contradicting due to the continues rain the past couple of week.

We’re glad that we went, we didn’t get to explore all the highlights of the festival but it was a nice night out for all the works we been through the weeks. We stroll along the Singapore River and the Civic District, it filled with beautiful lighting.

buildings are beautifully lighted up with graphics and digitized photo

the white, the blue and the red dot lights

my pick by Joe, she captured the most feminine part of me.

she is my ideal subject, she doesn’t see her beauty yet.

changes of lights on the iconic building just make the night more beautiful

wander around the iconic building, ignore the surround to experience the atmosphere.

Happy February! This is our Valentine showstopper! A light and creamy coconut cheesecake, with a tart mango center and a crunchy roasted nutty base. It is the perfect cake to bring to the table this festive season. It can be made well in advance and stored in the freezer. When ready to serve, just defrost and decorate.

To those who don’t have any valentine dates, grab some time and make this for your family and friends. We are sure that they will enjoy this in the festivals season.

Coconut Cake with Mango Puree is a creamy no-bake cheesecake that you’ll fall in love with! Made with only natural sweeteners, this cheesecake is both great for you and incredibly delicious!

We didn’t want to just create a regular cheesecake and we want to make one that everyone in our house like so Coconut Cake with Mango Puree it was! This stemmed from the fact that based on the number of mangoes I’ve eaten in the past two weeks, I’ve in fact turned into a mango. Also, I love coconut so much and used a lot of it in this recipe!

I know what you’re thinking…so, how does it taste?!

I will admit that I was super skeptical about this vegan coconut cheesecake and I’m happy to say this was AMAZING! I mean really, I love cream cheese cheesecakes, but if I found out tomorrow I could only eat vegan cheesecakes I would be pretty happy with my life. This had all the right things about cheesecake – the slight tartness, the sweet delicious parts and best of all a rich and creamy base with a thick crust. I loved this cheesecake, and the coconut flavor + the mango topping just took it over the top for me!

The ingredients are so simple, and the cheese substitute is cashews soaked in water which create such an amazing texture when blended! I get fresh mangoes but if you can’t, you can always thaw frozen mangoes.I genuinely see why people make no-bake cheesecakes now! They are so easy to make and without all the unnecessary fuss. I would just let you know to be wary of the melting factor, which honestly happened after an hour and a half of sitting out *effects of a food blogger on crutches!!* and once I put this back into the freezer it was perfectly fine again.

Oh yes, another small tip: a small Springform is really enough here. The cheesecake is incredibly rich. Just think, basically we eat pureed nuts here. With coconut. And more nuts, a little coconut oil, and a few dates. All super healthy but equipped with an enormous energy density.

To prepare the base, drain the soaked dates and almonds. Blend them in a food processor until they form a sticky dough. Then add the oats and shredded coconut and blend again until everything comes together. Press the dough onto the bottom of 4 6″ spring pan.

Now puree the mango with 1 tbsp lime juice. Save for later.

Place all the ingredients continuing in a blender and puree until the filling is very smooth and creamy. You might need to add some coconut milk or lime juice. Pour the filling over the crust. Now pour the pure mango on top and use a fork to create swirls.

Place the cake in the freezer and let it sit for at least 4 hours.

How are you planning to celebrate Valentine Day? Whatever you do, ensure that you try my recipe or one of the many recipes down below! Share with us your version! Take a photo of yours, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us, anything. We love to see yours!

It’s been a month since the new year, which means it’s time for a new theme for The Moon’s Insight. Since spring is around the corner, I decided to paint flowers for this month. As we all know spring is the season of flower. For the first week of February, I decided to paint one dedicated to my country – Singapore. Which is our national flower – Orchid.

Do you have an orchid (or a few) growing on your windowsill? They’re easier to grow than you might think. The flowers of an orchid like this one, a phalaenopsis, stay on the plant for months, providing a burst of color (and joy) for your home. However, it is very hard for us to grow it thus why not paint one.

This time I have uses less water for the paint thus the painting looks more powdery. It seems like I use color pencil for the painting but it is water paint. What do you think?

Having a thought to change your room from black and white to colours? When you can’t decide what colours to use, you might want to give your room a taste of pops!

If you love bright colours and retro styling, these room suit you a lot. It’s part aspiration and part inspiration. As big and bold as these rooms are, there are some pretty do-able ideas in here. Where you can spice up your room a little bit with some simple moves.

With portrait or illustration in the mixture of retro colours will bring the fun yet homey feel to the room. Splash some colour into your home with this energetic and fun retro arts. Imagine what a fun and lively atmosphere this wallpaper design would bring to kid’s playrooms and retro interiors. It’s perfect for pop-art lovers and adds heaps of personality to your home.

This week has been a disaster – not quite any relaxing week. I have meetings back-to-back, continues to work with hiccups with my keyboard. Apple products are always good, they have great helpdesk as well. Thus, they are way too popular that I need to the lineup to get into the queue. For my work, I decided to get myself a cheap keyboard to work first and indeed it save big time as I don’t have to waste time on working on the long cut. I miss the shortcut keys that I have memories. However, I wouldn’t say all is bad, at least I got a couple of catch up(s) with friends I felt that it is amazing!

Well, enough of me! This week I would like to dedicate this painting to lovely Teru. A travel blogger and freelance photographer from Prague, CZ. A lovely lady who I admire and falling in love with her charms, she is always with such a lovely personalities that are why she raise up quickly in the Instagram community. For those who are interested in her travelling, check it out her blog at http://terusguide.com/ and I believed that you will like her like I do.

It’s been far too long since I shared a hummus recipe. We love hummus so much that we keep on making new flavors. However, we’ve been neglecting to come up with anything new. Fortunately, we’re making up for lost time with one of the best hummus recipes we’ve made (or eaten) in a while. We made it on Sunday, and nearly all of it is gone.

The star of this hummus recipe is, of course, roasted carrots. Roasted carrots are one of my favorite things so it almost feels wrong to throw them into a food processor and blend them into hummus. But, having made an enormous tray of them over the weekend, we figured we could spare a few.

And we’re so glad that we did. As the subtle flavor and color that they add to this hummus recipe are truly special.You can make this hummus in a food processor. If you’d prefer to use raw carrots to cooked that’s fine. Shred them finely if you use your food processor for this; the food processor can certainly handle raw carrots, even if they’re not so finely shredded! And you’ll want to reduce the amount to 2 or 3 carrots since roasted carrots shrink a little.One of the ingredients we added spiced up the hummus and it is rose harissa. I am pretty sure you all know about harissa. Rose Harissa is the next sriracha sauce. By that, I mean the chili sauce you’re going to want to splatter on all your foods. Just a little bit of it in the hummus, it covers up the rawness of the carrots.

We usually don’t include too many herbs and spices in the sauce so we can add it to any meal without having a conflict of taste. But Rose Harrissa is one of them that we loved to have in our food.

Ingredients |

4 large carrots, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt or kosher salt and black pepper to taste

1½ – 2 cups chickpeas, cooked

¼ cup tahini

1 tsp of rose harissa

1 clove garlic, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon olive oil and sunflower seed, for drizzling (optional)

Method |

Preheat the oven to 400F. Toss the carrots with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Place them on a baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes, or until tender and browning along the edges.

Place the chickpeas in a food processor or Vitamix along with the carrots, olive oil, salt and pepper, tahini, rose harissa, garlic, and lemon juice. Pulse a few times to break it all down. Turn the motor on and drizzle in ½-2/3 cup water slowly, stopping often to scrape the container down. Use your judgment on how much water to add; I used the ⅔ cup, but less might be sufficient to obtain a creamy texture.

When the hummus is perfectly smooth, transfer it to a serving dish and drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over it. Serve.

Share with us your version! Take a photo of yours, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us, anything. We love to see yours!

Happy Sat… Thursday. I thought it is a weekend when I woke up, since usually during the weekend I have the best sleep. (And I dream about pizza) This few day I have been focusing on my new activity – weaving. This activity is relaxing and calming when I do it. However, I will need to get back to painting soon since I am out of paint for you guys.

These stressful days just makes me crave for pizza. The warm, enticing scents were floating down, basil and oregano and tomato. It made Wes long for something, something he couldn’t place. It is like a happy childhood, a home.

Pressman describes it as being both cool and fresh yet vibrant. It has verve. This blue offers a kind of lyrical escape. It’s an oasis for your eyes – luxurious and vivid. A visual delight that transports you beyond the banal. It speaks of the wide open firmament and summer and sun-lit sea.

Pretty glorious.

Think of the 60-30-10 model. You want to split your color scheme across this ratio with accents coming in at just 10%. This hue works really well to pique your palate – it’s super racy and adds spice. This particular hue works in well with greys and mustard to chartreuse tones. Look for inspiration and pair it with crisp white for fresh style. For high contrast, work in tandem with crimson red.

While the world keeps getting bigger and filled with more options and new and better things. It’s always the common things in life that capture my heart. Not the latest new gourmet food but those ridiculously ordinary things that have stood the test of time.

They are the things that I knew as a child and the things that still give me comfort as an adult whenever I see them. Like french fries, or that favorite pair of sneakers.When it comes to the stuff of my life, I like to keep things as simple as possible. That’s the real magic.

Sure, today, I have too much stuff and I really should get rid of some of it. But each time I pick up an object my mind floods back to the memories that it contains. I do eventually say goodbye to these little things, as I’ve no intention of becoming a hoarder, but it’s a slow process. It’s difficult to decide if a memory is worth keeping. How will I know if I’ll really miss it until it’s already gone? How about you?

This could be our favorite breakfast these days, it contains all our favorite bits of it. Now, all you listening is our munching sound, “yum yum yum”… while eating the toast. It’s a simple to go breakfast! Simply toast your bread, slices your bananas and spread it with butter. However, we decided to go with macadamia butter as it’s a healthier choice – it comes with nutty textures.

While we decide to go with thicker bread slices as it gives you a better taste with all the filling on top. Lastly sprinkles with chia seeds and lots of honey before you head out to work.

Simple isn’t it?

We bought this macadamia butter at Queen Victoria Market that we visited last October. Before I see this kind of butter, I only know there is the normal butter and peanut butter. It amazed me when I saw it, thus we decided to get it.

Why do we love macadamia? Not only because we love nuts in general! Macadamia is full of high-quality fats, low in polyunsaturated fats, and low in carbs. Besides, its flavor is unbeatable. Le’s us get started.

If you noticed, I have been struggling to post the portrait every Wednesday now and then. Essentially I have been pre-occupied with works beginning of each week. Therefore, I believed that I might be posting on Thursday for a period of time.

Back a while back, I’ve painted lots of amazing individuals and friends yet I couldn’t believe that I have left out a friend like her that played a big part in my life.

I met her 5 years back and I couldn’t be believed she converted me by inspired me “be free” with my life. She is a free soul, I admired her all the time, despite the difference we might have. She taught me to positive and happy despite the challenge fall onto me. It’s always hard to say but when you actually practice it with a friend like her, life seems happier and easier to pass by each day,

Almost every woman would love to receive flowers – especially on Valentine’s Day! People generally appreciate the warm feeling that comes with the surprise of flowers. However, sometimes you don’t need to plug them to brighten up your day.

While winter is leaving and we welcome spring and one of the essential are – Flora. You can now start putting up your sweet and beautiful flower curtain or those stunning flower wall decals. It simply turns your room into a little sweet dreamy spring room or those elegance living areas. With little changes, who says a temporary decoration can’t feel like home!

For those girls who love to travel, get some flora sneaker and get your journey going on. I can’t wait to get mine for the spring. Happy Monday!

Hello folks, it’s a new year and a new start to me. Therefore, as you can see there is a new format for The Moon’s Insight. It has been 2 years since I do water painting, somehow I still feel I am still not good at it even with all the practices I had done. While looking through what I have painted, it seems like I had already lost focus.

Therefore, I decided to challenge myself to do something different. Rather than painting what I like (which is mostly flowers) this time every month there will be a theme for each month. For example, this month the topic will be fast food, thus I will paint something related to it. For this week I painted a burger.

Anyway, it’s has been raining for 4 days straight in Singapore and I simply hate it. However, it is a good weather to have a burger. I also have been thinking to make this painting into wallpaper, what do you think?

People asking if we buy the on shelve ingredients, sometimes we do but we prefer to make on our own. We decided to share the different type of the pesto we created. You don’t have to stick with a standard recipe, play with the difference and you taste differently. Just a little toss with the ingredients, you are thus able to create a different flavor.

Making your own pesto you could enjoy it with your senses. The smell of fresh herb and the refining taste of the nuts, garlic, and the olive oil. That’s the reason why we love creating our own pesto – it is easy and simply required your 15 minutes.

Just prepare the ingredients and blend into pesto paste, you could even adjusting your own richness of the flavors and the texture of it. Nevertheless, this kind of sensation only could be made by hands, a jar of pesto you purchase on shelves will never give you the fresh taste of it.

Moreover, having a jar of pesto in your fridge is always a life saver for those busy weeknights. As, all you have to do is cook up some pasta, slather on that pesto and sprinkle with some Parmesan. Done and done. We enjoyed the raw texture that pistachio brings into, therefore, it matches so well with our favorite dishes – Mushroom Pasta with homemade herb pesto sauce. If you ever missed our past recipe just simply check it now!

Ingredients:

1 cup of Pistachio

1 1/2 cups of greens (spinach, basil, and parsley)

3/4 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup of olive oil

1 clove of garlic

juice of a lemon

A pinch of salt and pepper to taste.

Method |

Toast the pistachios in a small pan over low heat with no oil and butter – stir and shake the pan until the pistachio are fragrant and toasty. In a food processor, combine all the ingredients for the pistachio pesto and pulse until mostly smooth.

Share with us if you like the taste of it! Take a photo of yours, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us, anything. We love to see yours!

That’s already the second week of a new year – time passes quickly isn’t it? Before you realized it will be the end of January. Do you feel slightly depressing due to the pilling of old and new works? I do actually, I couldn’t adjust myself yet and I feel like it’s like nothing have changed yet. Maybe because of the gloomy weather – as it has been raining every day since new year eve.

This week I would like to dedicate this portrait to Andrea, despite a terrible day, looking her Instagram and Youtube page, the cheerful smile from her simply just motivate me to pull through everyday life.

She is inspiring individual especially lately I gain the courage to go on the bare face because of her influences. I could never dare to go out without a makeup to meet a friend. And I did it twice starting this year. It something impossible to me so I’m so proud to do that as it really is healthy for our skin to breathe.

So for those who are not convincing with a bare face, Andrea is very persuasive with it, highly suggest you check on her page.

Pantone will always surprise you with surprises, they have expertise that set the trend with the colors. It’s never my guess that after a year of greenery, 2018 will be Ultra Violet! It’s a very bold choice, unlike the greenery that you could apply any and everywhere. I still like the vision that they display, it could be a year full of unicorn, bubbles, skyline, and fantasy.

Thus, the mood board we put together, they can play it beautifully as well. As a designer, we always tell ourselves not to be fearful of the choice of colors but embrace them and enlarge the usage of it.

The usage of the Ultra Violet can be extremely striking or conventional. You can see the contrast they portray in interior and daily living. For those who are looking for a centerpiece, you could consider Ultra Violet instead of pink, orange or green shade. It definitely brings your room a different style for a brand new year!

Mushroom is our beloved choice at meals, it’s easy to cook and we can consume at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It has lots of nutrients that we require every day. I simply don’t get why people hate it! Well, I can’t blame them as I hate apple and jackfruit my whole life.

We like to use any kind of Mushroom, but the plain, everyday White Button Mushrooms are my favorite. Now, depending on the size of the Mushrooms we use, we might leave smaller ones whole, cut larger ones in half or even quarters.

We always serve this Mushroom dish as an appetizer, but it will work equally well as a side dish. However, the Creamy Mushrooms with Dill is not a dish that likes standing as with most Cream based dishes. As soon as it is done, we serve the Mushrooms immediately.

But getting back to the Creamy Mushrooms with Dill recipe – I make the main dish, whether it is a salad or a cooked meal, first. Depending on whether the meal can sit a while (whilst we enjoy the Mushrooms as an appetizer), or can cook on its own with me not needing to run to the pots every 5 minutes, I make the Mushrooms last.

Tips from the sister;

To make this vegetarian, use vegetable stock instead. Conversely, we sometimes add sauteed chicken, beef, or veal to the dish to make it a bit more hearty.

Do remember though, that Mushrooms shrink quite a bit whilst cooking and you want them to turn out just the right size to be eaten.

A must pan-seared the mushroom till golden brown before leaving it to stew with the cream and stock. As we mention it above it is not good to leave a cream based dish out for too long, thus it is important to COOK IT LAST!!

You can also serve Creamy Mushrooms with Dill with a slice or two of Garlic toast and you are in heaven!

Heat a large skillet over medium; swirl in 1 tablespoon oil. Add shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender and browned in places, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate.

Return skillet to medium-high. Swirl in 1 tablespoon each oil and butter. Add one-third of mushrooms, season with salt and pepper, and spread in a single layer. Cook, undisturbed, until beginning to brown on bottoms, about 3 minutes. Stir and continue cooking until tender and browned, about 2 minutes more. Transfer to plate with shallots.

Cook remaining mushrooms in remaining oil and butter in two more batches. Return cooked mushrooms and shallots with any accumulated juices to skillet. Stir in vinegar, then stock and cream, and simmer until thickened slightly about 2 minutes. Stir in dill, season with salt and pepper, and serve.

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It’s always a pleasure to be able to exchange with different creatives around the world. It has been a privilege and thanks to Instagram and various social media platform, it is much easier as compared to the ancient time.

This week I would like to dedicate this portrait to Jordon, @jordanfoy_, he is Director of Marketing at Mombo Labs, creators of Steller and Article. He is such an inspiring individual, I enjoyed his day-to-day photography featured on both Steller and his Instagram page. It’s beautiful to see the moments of capture. As it’s not set-up or stage. – purely beautiful stories like how Steller works!

That’s why we love steller a lot, we are able to stay connect and share proper stories. For those who don’t know about Steller yet, it time for you to know it now! You will love it like we do.

We notice plans never work out all the time without we strive to achieve our best self. Every year we have a set of commitments to remind ourselves to become a better one. Nevertheless, we have achieved quite a few but fail some. Have you achieved your promise in 2017 yet?

Still, it’s time to bid goodbye and a new set of resolution. Therefore, we sat down and make a list together for #LePlainCanvas, we hope that you could follow our journey to witness our promises till the new year-end. We also hope those who don’t have any resolution yet, get your pen and jot down what you want. Hopefully, you will find something common to what you like to do what we share with you some ideas!

So here we begin our list of ten for 2018…

one / Embrace ourselves.
(if we don’t who does?)

two / Learn how to enjoy and work happily.
(in term of having a good balance between work and blogging)

three / Visit new places and meet some new friends.
(to go list is somewhere we never been before!)

(you are our inspiration, thus we would always love to hear more from you)

ten / Be appreciative of what we got and say thank you to people around us.

We all don’t want to overestimate ourselves, and we always know that time to time we will have new aims and goals. Thus this year we only set 10 resolutions. And what is yours, share with us and we love to have a discussion with you!

Just less than 2 days left until the end of 2017, which means today will be the last post for Le Plain Canvas and #themooninsight.

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days. Looking back to all the painting in 2017 I have done, I still feel that I am kind of lost of what I like and want to paint. Everything just feels so overwhelming, therefore in the new year, one of my resolutions will be to focus.

Sometimes it is good to know and try lots of new things, however, there is a time that I will feel that I have not do anything. “If you want to be happy, do not dwell on the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.”

We love butter and use it in our cooking and will make no excuses for loving the real deal. When wesauté vegetables, which is almost every single night. I combine olive oil with butter because our palette can really taste the difference that a bit of butter makes! Today I’m sharing one of my favorite ways to flavor your store-bought butter if you want to add some kick to it. And how you can use this butter on the food.

If you’ve never tried making compound butter, it’s so easy. Use these butters as spreads too with a loaf of crusty French bread or a piece of toast.Start with unsalted butter that you leave out of the fridge until it’s softened to room temperature, although not melted. After the different trials, we discovered that our favorite butter comes in those sweet half wrapped sticks, which are perfect for small batches!

The best way for us to just mix our butter the old fashioned way with a fork, but you can use a whisk or blender if preferred. We sort of dislike to call this a “recipe” because compound butter takes literally no time. Moreover, only a few ingredients to prepare. You can add as little or as much of each ingredient as you like.We have some dried figs, parsley and whole grain mustard around and pretty much always have these in my fridge. Mince up a few your herbs and add to your butter, little by little. That’s how I do it as an instinctual cook. Once you are satisfied with the flavor, add a very small amount of sea salt to taste.

To store your flavor butter you can dollop it on to some wax paper and roll it, shaping as you would a jelly roll. Twist the ends to seal and there you have it!

Just a little recap of the rules of making these flavor butter;

Use room temperature butter only

Finely chop or grind ingredients

Mix the flavored butter in a bowl

Scrape mixture onto parchment paper

Roll into a log and twist the ends

Refrigerate until ready to use

We refrigerate it for at least 2 hours before it’s ready to use.

Flavored butter can be used in a variety of ways, depending on the flavor of the butter. We like to make both sweet and savory. We think any flavor butter is good on a piece of bread but you can also use them on vegetables to add a lovely flavor.

Ingredients |

500g of mixed roots vegetables

2 tbsp of flavored butter

salt and pepper to taste

Method |

Lay your vegetables on the parchment paper, spread the butter evenly on the vegetables and season it with salt and paper to taste. Grilled it on the pan till soft and tender or in the oven for 25 minutes at 180 C.

Get creative and tie the ends with pretty ribbon, put a label on them and bring them as hostess gifts to that Thanksgiving dinner. If you try them or have some other ideas, let me know what you think!

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How was the holiday season so far? Hopefully, everyone did enjoy your Christmas! I’m ashamed of myself for the two weeks long of hiatus from #APaintPortrait. While I’m trying to cope with the assignment before the holiday season, therefore, everything seems messed up. Although it is still being quite messy at work I just couldn’t take any of it as an excuse.

This week I would like to dedicate this portrait to Carol, @whimsicarol, sweetie from Texan. She is always sweet and great with her brush and camera. I enjoy spending time with her Instagram feed as it just cheers my day with great images and story!

As a creative, It is always interesting to know someone through their story as it will inspire me in any and every way. Stay tuned for another portrait of Carol and her super cute puppy in upcoming 2018!

Yes, our long awaiting day is here 25 December the Christmas. The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness. It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than in things.

Like last year I painted in the globe for the Christmas. Spending some time to paint during Christmas is a really hard time. With all the gathering and preparation of gift, I just couldn’t find any time to paint. Thus it teaches me a lesson to paint them early.

So for this Christmas, I wish for health and love to this world. Have a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Eve, we are all prepared for our celebration tomorrow. We have a great month celebrating Christmas and preparing all the craft and food. We have also tried several amazing recipes that are brand new to us, and we can’t wait to share it with you soon.

Today we are going to make a small Swedish cake Coconut Matcha Pines. A fun fact for you they are actually called Kokostoppar. They are usually plain in flavor but since it is Christmas we decided to spice up a bit with Green Tea.

This little cake is perfectly frothy, not too “green” in taste, slightly sweet. It should also leave you completely satisfied. It is also something that you can make a snack for your friends and family.

Coconuts are excellent for making sugar-free as coconut has a naturally sweet taste. If you want a little bit sweeter, you can mix in some tablespoons coconut, honey or other natural sweets. But you definitely do not need 200g sugar as usual desiccated coconut usually contain.

If you’re not familiar with matcha, it’s basically very pure powdered green tea leaves. It’s exceptionally high in antioxidants and metabolism boosting compounds. It also has a very particular taste that I love.

We want to be boosting our metabolisms as this is the rate at which our: body uses energy, which supports weight loss.

This is a very simple recipe, however, we did face a little challenging when we are trying to mold the pines shape. Thus after trying serval method using hand and tools. We ended up making our own cone mold, using a piece of paper. Surprisingly it works amazingly well.

However, make sure you press the mixture into the mold firmly we have our’s failed cause of the mistake. Nevertheless, we are sure you will fall in love with the process of making it.

Ingredients |

200 grams desiccated coconut

50g melted unsalted butter

2 tablespoons matcha powder

lime juice

100g of caster sugar

2 large eggs

Method |

Preheat the oven to 175 ° C. Melt the butter (let it cool) and mix all the ingredients. Form small peaks and bake baking paper for 10-15 minutes, depending on the oven.

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Ho Ho Ho! I’m trying to imitating the Santa, but sorry I failed. I don’t act or behave like him but I love to give gifts like he does! The good and bad children list and etc… Well, at home we just like the elves, busy preparing for the holiday. Every Christmas is the most joyful holiday I could ask for. People are busy at least a month ahead and getting gifts for their loved ones. And the meals are what friends and family looking for!

This Christmas we are not going to go for the grand but a white and simple Scandinavian styled, not only the setting but also the food choice. We didn’t plan for something big but something simple and sweet within the family.

Let’s start with the main, we wanted a simple yet colorful centerpiece, thus we make a crown roast – Garlic Rosemary Chicken Cranberries. There is nothing better and easier than this simple one-pan baked chicken. All the comfort with little work.

And that’s what we have in today’s easy garlic rosemary chicken except with an added festive twist using cranberries! The clincher is that they all cook in the oven, leaving your stove top free for making your sides.

All of these one-skillet recipes can cook on the stove while the main dish is roasting, which means no jockeying for space and time in the oven. Each one spotlights a single ingredient dressed up in flavors that complement any protein, whether it’s your traditional turkey or ham or one of our entrees.

We decided to have two sides for this dinner, Pan-Seared Mushrooms with Cream and Dill goes especially well with chicken and Grilled Roots with homemade butter. This is the first time we made our first flavored butter using whole-grain mustard and fig.

Your goal is to welcome guests with nibbles and drinks, not fill them up or get them too lubricated before the main event. One or two showstopping cheese and colorful crudités with a three-ingredient dip are plenty (Take a look at our mini morning cheese palette.) Serve it alone with this Earl Grey Punch, it is beautiful at the same time it tastes refreshing.

Nothing signals that a party’s over like the host starting the dishes. It’s like the lights coming on at the end of a school dance. Stack everything in the sink and soak it in hot water and soap and relax. You can put away food after everyone leaves, too.

May the spirit of the Christmas fill your home with peace, joy, and love. HoHoHo!

We decided to start another week on the right foot… with dessert. During a recent trip to our local wet market, I was drawn to all of these gorgeous peaches. I read somewhere that you shouldn’t even look at a peach before July. As their season typically ends in September.

So, although people may consider peaches to be more of a winter thing, I can confidently say that they are also a fall thing.

After buying several peaches, I immediately knew that I wanted to make pies. I haven’t made one yet this month and one of my favorite things about every season is pie. I really love combining fresh fruits with herbs and pies or galettes are a good opportunity to do that.

For this recipe, I wanted to combine the peaches with lemon and thyme. The flavors are magical together and because it tastes so good, it’s hard to believe that it’s so easy to make.

My favorite part of this pie recipe (besides how it tastes) is the anticipation of it. Since you can sit back and let the oven do most of the work, you get to really enjoy the smells as they fill the room. The aromas of pies baking always bring me so much happiness – even a Monday can’t take from me.

This peach and lemon pie showcase these peaches perfectly, with a deep dish form so as to stuff as many peaches into a single pie as we could… naturally. We’ve also been itching to use the leaves off my finally-flourishing thyme plant and the touch of thyme lends an incredibly bright and fresh streak to the sweet cooked peaches inside the pie.

The crust itself also has a bit of almond flavor thrown in, for an amazing scent fresh out of the oven, and of course, we couldn’t resist finishing off the thick lattice with an extremely generous sprinkling of turbinado sugar for a crunchy, candy-like top.

We can’t resist having a mini competition on seeing who did a better pie.

Joe vs Angela. which do you prefer?

Ingredients |

4-5 large peaches, pitted, peeled and cut into thick slices

1/4 cup sugar

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon of fresh thyme

2 tablespoons flour

Optional: We used pre-made pie crusts (2 per box), but I highly recommend making your own for a fresh flavor.

Method |

Preheat oven to 180 C. Roll out one roll of the pie crust and line the bottom of a deep pie dish. Refrigerate.

Toss peaches with sugar, lemon zest, and juice, thyme, and flour. Transfer into the pie pan on top of the bottom crust. Roll out the other half of the pie crust. Make the top pie crust of your choice. (Note: We made a lattice crust.) Sprinkle with sugar.

Place a baking sheet on a lower rack beneath the pie pan to catch any juices that might boil over. Note: If you skip this step and the juice boils over, you will have to clean your oven to avoid filling your kitchen with smoke. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour or until the crust is golden and the juices are bubbling. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

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Let’s be honest, one of the best the best part of a party or event is when you see a big, beautiful cheese platter on the table. On the table, it is glowing with all types of cheeses, perfect fruit, and crisp crackers. The opportunities and mouthfuls are endless. Well, if you’ve ever wondered how to make the platter of your dreams at home, we’ve got you covered. Not saying we are going to have them in the morning.

This Christmas morning we decided to have a mini cheese palette to start our day. After we are back from Melbourne, not only we brought memories back. We also brought back all this amazing cheese and dips.

Let’s start by choosing your cheese, we end us having a soft – goat cheese and an old – smoky parmesan cheese. A little tip for you when you serve your cheese. Cheese should be served at room temperature, so plan on pulling it out of the fridge about 30-60 minutes before serving. To keep the cheese from drying out, you can lightly cover it with a barely damp towel.

For the old smoky parmesan cheese, the longer a cheese ages, the harder and crumblier the texture becomes. They tend to be saltier and full of great flavor. But remember: a little goes a long way with really aged cheese. It really packs a punch.

When you hear or see goat cheese, usually it refers to chevre, which is a fresh goat cheese. But there are dozens and dozens of goat cheeses available — fresh and aged.

Man can’t live on cheese alone, and neither can your guests! Have fun with sweet and salty accompaniments, from assorted crackers with seeds or herbs, hearty whole-grain artisan bread, to sweet fruit and nut-studded quick bread, and mini toasts.

Lemon is one of those juice that just goes down so easily, especially on a hot day with friends. So why not use lemon as a base for punch? That’s exactly what we have done with this number. Think mildly boozy, bubbly adult lemonade with a soft earl grey undertone. Since this is a punch, you can use an ice ring to freeze a large block of ice; otherwise standard cubes work, too (I like to freeze fruit and herb in the ice). Whatever you choose, good luck drinking just one glass!

How to make Lemon Ice ring/ wheels?

We start by laying down the lemon at the base of the mold. (We use the cake mold for this recipes.) Add in 1/10 of water, slightly cover the lemon. Leave it in the freezer for 20 minutes. Take it out from the freeze, spread the rosemary and leave the ice in the freezer overnight.

You can also prepare it ahead!

Too much to prepare for the dinner, you can prepare this punch ahead and save some time. Syrup and tea can be made 3 days ahead; cover separately and chill. Punch can be made 1 day ahead; cover and chill.

Ingridents|

¼ cup loose Earl Grey tea or 4 bags

½ cup honey

4 sprigs thyme

2 sprigs rosemary, plus more for garnish

1 cup fresh lemon juice

1½ cups bourbon

1 teaspoon orange or regular bitters

Ice ring and lemon wheels (for serving)

Method |

Combine tea and 1¼ cups boiling water in a heatproof bowl. Let steep 5 minutes, then strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a measuring glass (you should have 1 cup). Let cool.

Combine tea, honey syrup, lemon juice, bourbon, and bitters in a large pitcher or punch bowl. Add 2 cups ice and stir until ice is melted and punch is very cold. Serve punch in tumblers filled with ice, garnished with rosemary sprigs and lemon wheels.

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We don’t spend a lot of time making crafts but there are a few crafts I really enjoy making. For this Christmas, we decided to make our own wreath for the door than buying it. If you do find a wreath that’s comparable, it’s going to come with a hefty price tag. You can make one of these yourself at a fraction of the cost and it took me just a little over an hour to make both wreaths, and that included picture-taking time.

There are a few basic steps you’ll need to follow when making your own Christmas wreath but they’re simple, and if you’ve never made your own I want to boost your confidence that you can do it and you’ll be so happy you did! Homemade anything is always so gratifying and each day when you come home and see that wreath on your door, you’ll beam with pride.

Let’s get started!

When it comes to Christmas we’re very traditional and we love the old-fashioned red, green, white, and silver. You can use any color scheme or kinds of decorations you prefer. Just simply use these ideas for inspiration and customize it to your own preferences.

Some tips for you when it comes to making the wreath;

The size of decorations you use will depend on the size of wreath you use. For example, if you’re making a huge wreath, you’ll want to include some large ornaments. If you’re making a small wreath, large ornaments won’t look very good. I’ve gathered a few decorations of varying shapes and sizes. Ikea and Daiso are always a great place to find anything you’ll need for this project.

You’ll also need plenty of fresh pine branches. Avoid ones with thick stems, go with the thinner ones because you need to be able to bend them. For us, we used a green garland.

Moreover, you’ll also need a pair of clippers and some florist wire as it will provide good support while allowing you to easily bend and twist it.

Materials |

Silver Christmas bulbs

0.3m of White Satin Ribbon

Red bells

1m of Green Garland

0.5m of Sliver beads Garland

Wooden Wreath

Directions |

Start by twisting the green garland around the wooden Wreath in the clockwise motion. Secure them to the straw wreath by wrapping some florist wire around them, strapping them down to the base. Continue twisting the Sliver beads Garland around in the clockwise motion. Okay, now your basic pine wreath foundation is complete!

Make a bow using the White Ribbon, trim of the ends. Using the florist wire, attach the bow with the bells. Secure it to the wreath.

Finish the wreath by adding Silver Christmas bulbs to the wreath. You’re done! And just look at this positively gorgeous Homemade Christmas Wreath!

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It’s almost Christmas! Thus, today’s we will be having a #throwback post and it is the Christmas Edition, with all the Christmas Ideas! Christmas is only a weeks away. Last year we have our very first official Christmas’s Day celebration, time really does pass fast.

Food should be nourishing and delicious. It sounds simple, right? With sweets especially, it can be so hard to find treats that are as good to eat as they are for you. Tender, buttery Madeleine is one of my favorite cookies to enjoy with tea, and these rich, almond-scented ones are a lovely twist on the classic.

Are there times when you are hosting a dinner with friends and wanted them to feel welcome by adding some personalize touch? This cinnamon place-card holder will add a winter element that looks pretty and smells delicious to the Christmas table. This super simple cinnamon and Christmas leaf place card will take next to no time to create and will turn your table into a winter wonderland.

Are your family all still hungry even after all the delicious food you have made? This Creamy Scalloped Potato is the most creamy, delicious scalloped potatoes are all an all-time dinner favorite. Most importantly it is using the most basic ingredients you have in the kitchen.

Back to Victorian times, there is a tradition when everyone in the household gives the Christmas pudding mixture a stir and makes a wish. Whilst stirring the fruit, spices, and liquor together, it’s very hard not to feel festive and uplifted. For our version, we decided to go with mini Chocolate Orange Christmas Pudding instead. For those of your family and friends whom never try previously, it is the best mass for a gift this holiday season.

While, for those who couldn’t decide what to get for your Christmas’s gift, why not make it your own. This year, instead of buying a whole load of expensive packets of roasted spiced nuts or honey-roasted ones, make your own! Who doesn’t love a little chew on a good walnut or almond at Christmas with a mug of hot choco? Or delving into a bowl of mixed walnuts and pistachio in the early evening.

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Sorry for any delays, was busy catching up with works these days. It has been almost coming to two months since our trip. If anyone has to ask, what is the most darling memory to take away from our Melbourne trip, I would say Great Ocean Road.

Needless to say, we took a million photos throughout our whole day trip. We couldn’t drive therefore we book a day trip with a local tour – The Little Penguin Bus. It’s the best experience ever that I would highly recommend.

I bet we took a lucky charm portion that morning, usually the bus is full but that day just the 5 of us including the guide.Therefore we get the most intimate services. What’s the best is the bus has the most amazing playlist ever, tell me what could go bad than a terrible playlist.

It just felt so good to be in nature, out of the city for a while. And we saw the beautiful field and wild creatures in the wild! Couldn’t get any better.

We had such a great time, and I can easily say our timing when we arrived at the Twelve Apostles could not have been better. The wind was freezing cold, we were tired and hungry, but that all didn’t really matter because the views were so incredibly beautiful.

I can’t wait to book a flight to other parts of Australia and Tasmania soon. Before that I think it will be awesome I get our driving license.

Teddy Lookout could be my favorite spot especially there are fewer crowds in the afternoon.

We believed that this is the best shot ever – you can feel how strong the wind is.

In our 10 days trip to Melbourne, we have been enjoying all the delicious food and cafes. However, there is one day we ended our day earlier thus we decided to cook. As we mentioned during our South Melbourne Market post, we ended up having 2 red beets during the “To Market To Market Tours”. So why no cook them?

We love everything about Melbourne, especially the market with fresh ingredients with reasonable pricing. We ended up getting our all-time meat – beef. Looking at all the delicious and crispy vegetables, we got the carrots.

We didn’t want to get any seasoning as we are only cooking for a meal. Thus we both prayed hard that there is something for us to use in the Airbnb’s kitchen. We ended up having some butter and salt. Usually, I will cook the steak with oil, butter, garlic, and rosemary. However, we ended up using butter and seasoning with salt and pepper.

I guess it is the ingredients we got on the market are too fresh, they were delicious even without much flavoring.

Little tips for you when it comes to cooking the steak;

Before you start, get the steak out of the fridge and allow it to come up to room temperature about one hour before cooking – frying or grilling it from cold will stop the heat from penetrating to the middle as efficiently. You also need to make sure your pan, griddle or barbecue is super hot before you begin – this will help to caramelize the meat, essential for a delicious crust.

During cooking, aim to cook your steak medium-rare to medium – any more and you’ll be left with a tough piece of meat. Turning it every minute or so will make sure you get a really even cook.

After cooking, leave it to rest and rub with a little extra virgin olive oil or butter for an incredible, juicy steak.

Ingredients |

400g of Sirloin Beef

2 Beet Root (cut them in cube)

6 Carrots (Separate the leaves with the carrot)

3 tbsp of butter

Pinch of salt and black pepper

Method |

We seasoned both the beetroot and carrots with salt and pepper. Pan-grilled the beetroot and carrots with a great amount of butter until soft.

Rub the steak all over with a good lug of butter and a good pinch of sea salt and black pepper. Add the steak to a hot pan. Then cook for 6 minutes for medium-rare, or to your liking, turning every minute. Once cooked to your liking, rest the steak on a plate that can collect all the lovely juices for 2 minutes.

If you try it, don’t forget to share your picture on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with #byplaincanvas. Thank you so much for reading, and till next time!

Just days more towards Christmas and I just wish it will stop. This month I have been preparing all shot of DIY and handmade product. As what’s the best gift than the handmade one. I have made some homemade nougat and roasted nut. Comment if you want to learn how I make it.

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.

One of our favorite wine is the sparkling wine – Champagne. However today we are gonna talk about a different kind, having Campagne color in our food. We have seen this Pantone color time and time again because it is probably the most classic and versatile. It works well with any season and climate.

This color is soft and luxurious. The Pantone champagne works best with bright red flowers or any bright pinks will do! Thus you can add a little flora to your drink to brighten up the mood. For the growing teenager, you can enjoy the food without being “little girly” as the color it’s feminine.

Let celebrate the year-end with this beautiful champagne throughout the parties and holiday season! What we mean are both of it!

Christmas is not far from us, every day near the end of the year. I am always thankful for what has happened to me throughout the years. Things aren’t always the good ones, bad ones happen too. And this year I have learned to embrace them. They help me to be stronger as I learned from it.

I always tell myself to be content with what I have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to me. I know that there will always a plan for me and I’m going to follow in his footsteps and just rejoice and be happy.

I may have lost my way on what I want to do but I have never lost myself.

When it came to December, it is always the time to start counting down for Christmas. Scrolling the Pinterest looking at all the Christmas inspiration makes me more excited for it to comes. The cute little mini donuts are always floating around waiting for me to make it. Moreover, it only takes less than 20 minutes to bake them

Since this easy donut recipe starts with a cake mix, you can make them in any flavor you can find a cake mix in chocolate, strawberry, lemon, white, etc.! We made a basic vanilla flavor using some staple ingredients in the home. The donuts made from it were absolutely delicious, especially when topped with a simple glaze.

This might be the cutest and sweetest day of the year! I’ve never made donuts before, but I’ve wanted to check this recipe off my bucket list for so long now! This is a super easy recipe but I’m not going to lie, halfway through I wasn’t sure if they were going to turn out as cute as they did!

It gets a bit messy with all the icing and some of them didn’t dip as nicely as I hoped… so off to the side they went. (Well, okay I did eat a few through the process!)

Don’t be discouraged if the decorating part isn’t so perfect. There’s something magical and organic looking like a not so perfect donut. All together they complete that perfectly styled homemade donut look! I just loved the way they turned out, and they are so delicious!

Not too sweet, not greasy at all and perfect with a cup of tea! The recipe and steps are below, hope you have a chance to try them out too. Happy donut making… or donut pinning!

Now, before I give you the recipe I will say this: cake mix donuts don’t taste exactly like donuts you’d buy at the store. Since they are baked instead of fried the consistency is a little different, although they are quite similar to “cake donuts”. The taste varies depending on the cake mix you choose.

Ok, ready to make cake mix donuts? All you do is whisk the ingredients together until well combined – a few lumps will remain. I like to dump the batter into a large resealable plastic bag, then snip off one corner and use that to “pipe” the batter into the mold, filling the bottom well.

You’ll need to experiment a little with how thick or thin you like your chocolate dips. Add in oil for thin dips and it dries fairly clear, allowing the color of the donut to show through, while thick dips stay opaque white. If you want pretty donuts, allow them to cool completely before glazing – the dips don’t look as nice if it melts on a hot donut. But hot donuts taste great, so if you want to dips and eat them immediately, go for it!

Ingredients |

1 cup of butter

1 1⁄2cups of sugar

2 eggs

3 cups of flour

4 1⁄2 teaspoons of baking powder

1⁄2 teaspoon of salt

1⁄2 teaspoon of nutmeg

1 cup of milk

1⁄2 teaspoon of cinnamon

Method |

Blend 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter with 1 cup of sugar. Add the eggs and mix well. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Add to the butter and sugar mixture. Blend in the milk and mix together thoroughly.

Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until doughnuts is golden.

If you try it, don’t forget to share your picture on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with #byplaincanvas. Thank you so much for reading, and till next time!

The beginning of December is an extremely hectic – new job, ongoing works, schedules and the festive preparation. Despite all of that, painting is always part of my priority. I might skip one or two weeks but I know that nothing could stop me to spend my hours for it. It’s a promise to myself and for those who anticipate the final look of portraits.

This week I would like to dedicate this paint I did for Kevin. He is a talented individual – a dreamer who dance and sing at his best on stage! With his Broadway musical performance showing, it thus makes me excited. Therefore, someday I would love to show my support for his performance, that will be amazing.

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.

Do you want to keep your Christmas decorations nice, trendy and minimal? How about try something new this holiday season? Therefore, you may want to try Scandinavian Christmas decorating. The Scandinavian is a trendy and modern decorating mainly characterized by its cozy, rustic and minimalist style.

This beautiful, comforting approach allows everyone to relax and enjoy each other’s company effortlessly. Think white, beige, grey, and add some pops of black for contrast. And of course lots of rich, winter greenery since it is Christmas after all.

To add more fun to your decorations, bring the outdoors inside with wood, moss, evergreens, pinecones, and other natural materials. Your house should smell like a forest! Moreover, lighting is key in Scandinavian design and Christmas is no exception. It is, after all, the time of year with the least amount of daylight, with the northern tip of Norway being in complete darkness for about 60 days a year. So make sure to fill your house with pretty mood lighting. Mix-and-match candles, twinkle lights draped over furniture, and paper lanterns (star shapes are the best!) hanging from the ceiling.

The simplest decor will have the biggest impact. Grab an evergreen branch, put it in a simple but beautiful vase, add a candle (or four) and voilà, you’ve got yourself a beautiful, Scandinavian table display.

This year is coming to an end soon, we have just a month to a new year. This year is a tough year, I try new things, some succeed while some fail. However I do believe, as long as we are persistence in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time.

Good things are associated with blue, like clear days, more than singing the blues. Just the word ‘blue’ in the singular is full of optimism and positive connotation to most people.

What’s your comfort food? For us, clearly, bread is definitely on top of the list. They are soft, filling and they make you satisfied all day! Therefore what’s better than a piping hot cheezy panini from your iron pan? It is crispy and the melted cheese is just satisfying.

We love bread, they just spread it with butter is excellent enough. Truly, we don’t eat Panini that often but after trying the Panini from Animal Orchestra, Melbourne. That changes our mind about Panini. During our trip we got some really fresh Champagne Ham, we decided to try on our own Panini, it’s nothing complicated but simply make you satisfying. So we want you to have a taste of ours.

Things are easily gathering, you can make them from scratch or purchase them in store. So we usually make our own pesto, therefore, it takes slightly stronger in favors.

Oh man. That salty, juicy ham. Those sweet, crisp tomato. The creamy and tangy homemade pesto sauce. That glorious, melty swiss cheese. And that satisfying crunch as you bite into each toasty, buttery bite. This is definitely my new favorite sandwich!

We always love to have a change, thus here are some tips on how to have this bread.

The bread is important. It needs to be bread sturdy like ciabatta but yet soft enough to allow grill marks (crisp-crust baguette doesn’t work). Ciabatta isn’t an “accessory” bread: It adds flavor to the sandwich.

Reconsider buying standard deli meats and cheeses that are thinly sliced. You need more substantial slices of meat in order to give the best texture to the Panini the best texture.Use “dinner slices.”

Use other condiments. Save the everyday pesto for un-toasted sandwiches. Consider making your own pesto and you can customize made the taste. You can also use mayo and mustard for the condiments too.

Ingredients |

1 foot French Baguette

8 slices of Champagne Ham (or any ham you prefer)

4 tbsp of Homemade Pesto

4 slices of Mozzarella Cheese Slices

1 Tomatoes

Method |

Spread 1 1/2 teaspoons pesto mixture on one side of a slice of bread. Top with a slice of cheese, 2 slices ham, and slices of tomatoes. Spread 1 1/2 teaspoons pesto mixture on a second slice of bread and place pesto side down on top of cheese to form a sandwich.

Brush top and bottom of each sandwich with olive oil. Place in a panini grill and press until bread is crisp and brown, and cheese has melted slightly, 9 to 10 minutes. If using a grill pan, preheat over medium-high heat. Place a heavy pan on top of sandwiches and press down. Cook, turning once, 2 to 3 minutes per side.

Cut sandwiches in half and serve immediately.

If you try it, don’t forget to share your picture on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with #byplaincanvas. Thank you so much for reading, and till next time!

Weekend in Melbourne is busy than ever, and it’s time to get out of your house! Unlike in Singapore, we tried our best to avoid the crowds out there and catch some sleep that we missed. While in Melbourne, you will never want to miss the amazing stuff out there. You’ll get up as early as 7 am and be involved with local events meet some new friends around these beautiful markets.

When coming to Melbourne there is so much for designers and artists to showcase their beautiful creation and products. You will get to know more about what the locals do. That is the reason why you shouldn’t miss out the seasonal The Finders Keepers or the Rose Street Artist Market (there are so much more but just two weekends is just not enough to explore them).

Therefore, we highly recommend spending your whole day at Carlton and Fitzroy area. This area is filled with the lovers of arts and food.

Popsicle tastes great even we are in cold weather.

there’s dessert bar(s) and our favorite Frankie corner.

you can find artist and talents in your footsteps.

Many stores for us to explore and we got some really beautiful kitchenware home.

Be like a Melbournians

Melbourne is a place for artists and designers, don’t get excited just about Hosier Lane. Take a walk around the city and you will discover many more mural arts that weren’t crowded with tourist. You might want to walk around Fitzroy area to have a look at the different side of Melbourne. It might seem like a quiet street but filled with many hidden hideouts – such as bars, studios, cafes and Artist Market.

Every part of Fitzroy is a hidden gem.

Surely not an abandoned pups but a patient one waiting for the owner to finish their meal.

Hooks is one of the items that help to hold your stuff up to the wall. However, rather than all the boring and simple command hooks, why not have these colorful and pretty ones. This pretty set of hooks… you know, for hanging stuff! Like hats and purses… or even Christmas stockings!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! We’re wishing you a happy one as we takes a little time off from blogging to spend time celebrating with our families. Some of us have miles to travel. And many us have plenty of cooking to do with and for loved ones! No matter what you’re up to, we wish you a happy and safe day. We’re sending you a big hug from across the internet.

Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough. As gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.

Making soup out of the “can” is never our thing! We prefer getting thing messy on our hands.

With just 5 simple ingredients, my Thai Pumpkin Soup delivers a curry and coconut flavor combination more often expected from a pumpkin soup recipe with far more ingredients than 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Bonus: It’s ready to eat in under 10 minutes.

Since it is autumn which means it is still pumpkin season, we decided to make use of the pumpkin puree that we last made. With the sign of weather cooling down here in Singapore, I whip up a batch of this pumpkin soup. It’s a comforting classic with a Thai twist.

As it is Halloween season, one of the must have ingredient is the homemade pumpkin puree. I raided the pantry for some homemade pumpkin puree and made this recipe even simpler on myself. With no chopping, no sautéeing, it seriously took maybe 5 minutes more to make this soup than opening a can of Campbell’s. And that’s mostly just because I had more to chop than just one to open.

That’s why with just 5 ingredients as the sum total of deliciousness, my Thai Pumpkin Soup is the perfect last minute fare. It’s a savory time saver. You don’t have to pay me extra for the jokes folks.

The spiciness from the soup comes from the red Thai paste, so you can add as little or as much as you like, depending on how hot you want it. I find that the amount of heat in different brands varies hugely, so be careful not to go overboard. Serve it for lunch, or even for dinner with some garlic flatbread for dipping.

If you would love to have a little bit of change, here are some little tips for you.

Don’t let the ease of this pumpkin soup recipe fool you. It would make a killer starter to any entertaining plans that include your cooking a meal, including Thanksgiving. It’s a one pot shop and can be pulled together in 10 minutes, leaving more time for last-minute mashing and gravy slurries to be made.

Making this a main meal is terribly simple with the addition of a simple protein. For poultry lovers, add in 2-3 chicken breasts chopped into bite-size chunks when you add the coconut milk and cook for about 5 minutes longer or until the chicken is cooked through.

For vegetarians, add chunks of tofu and even a few green beans or peas once you’ve added the coconut milk and cook until warmed through.

If you’re using a fresh pumpkin, reserve a cup or so and add in the chunks to the soup for more bite.

Ingredients |

2 tablespoons red curry paste

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth, about 32 ounces

2 15 ounce cans pumpkin puree

1¾ cup coconut milk, or a 13.5 ounce can, reserving 1 tablespoon

1 large red chili pepper, sliced

Bacon bites (optional)

Method |

In a large saucepan over medium heat, cook the curry paste for about one minute or until paste becomes fragrant. Add the broth and the pumpkin and stir.

Cook for about 3 minutes or until soup starts to bubble. Add the coconut milk and cook until hot, about 3 minutes.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with a drizzle of the reserved coconut milk and sliced red chili. Garnish with bacon if desired.

Any leftover soup can be cooled, covered and refrigerated or frozen – so it’s worth making a double batch for those busy weeknights. If you try it, don’t forget to share your picture on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with #byplaincanvas. Thank you so much for reading, and till next time!

Don’t you excited about the upcoming festival? Following the celebration of Thanksgiving, the autumn is coming to an end. And the next big thing would be Christmas! However before we quickly jump into that, I’m sending my biggest thanks to this couple, Wynne and her husband. I fond of this amazing lady from Melbourne! Before my trip, she gave me lots of tips and is definitely make my trip a lot more memorable.

I love being connected with her as she is always so cheerful, lively and joyful. You can definitely see through her from her Instagram. While photos tell you personalities of a person, it defines you but expresses the moment you have been.

I think now that I’m in the autumn of my life, and I’m getting a chance of having an overview and looking at the shape of how things happen, when things happen, why things happen, I think it was fitting that I spent most of my early career doing mask work, because I just don’t think I was that comfortable in my own skin. Ron Perlman just speaks my mind.

What’s the most essential the things for your every morning? For me (us), it’ll always be breakfast, therefore Melbourne is the best place for it! We thought it’s necessary to share this post as this is one of the best local hide-outs.

While, throughout our trip, the best breakie we had were from Good Egg, they served delicious eggs breakfast. Also, they are especially good with their scotched eggs! The runny egg yolk is coated with juicy minced meats and crunchy skin. You have to eat it along with the sweet basil, they are a delightful combination.

So, the question is where can you find the cafe? It’s somewhere away from the CBD area but easily accesses. Good Egg is just located opposite South Melbourne Market, right beside Market Lane Coffee.

We’re huge fans of design, definitely in love with their menu design.

That morning does have an interesting episode. See those images below? They happened within a moment! They are just the most adorable food chain ever. Seeing that little girl staring at the golden retriever while he is staring at Joe! But Joe just simply too cold to be focusing on herself. Nah, she is just too obsessed with her collection of wildflowers. While they are just the most adorable combination to kick-start a Sunday morning.

Another reason I love Good Egg because they have the most lovely staff ever, great smile and they just take care of everyone (including your pet).

In modern home, the color silver is usually used as a primary color. It can create a futuristic impression because of it. Sliver color can be found in the modern home and kitchen. And usually the sliver comes from the stainless steel wares. Such as shades of silver are presented in the kitchen appliances.

You can start your silver kitchen idea from having silver kitchen cabinets, and then continued to the fridge, oven, microwave, and cooker hood.

However, the futuristic look of the all-silver color, gives a stiff and cold feeling. To compensate, you can be apply warm colors as a companion. You can combine your silver kitchen with warm lighting or marbles ware to the different places.

Today painting and post is delicate to my dear friend Huishan’s big day – her wedding. As you can see I did a cartoon drawing of her and her husband- Tyrus, but it was nothing like them. (I will try my very best for the next one!)

It’s my girlfriend’s wedding and it is the privilege of watching her marry to their loves. I am so grateful and happy that I can be part of her life. And it is wonderful that I can witness their love story. Starting from them getting to know each other, to him coming to our lecture when his free. These two are pretty crazy about each other. Time flies, tomorrow will be their new start.

It was an absolute honor to see this gem on her big day and celebrate their new beginning. I am very happy that my girlfriend have met you. Thank you!

Praying for an amazing first year of marriage for these two lovebirds!

Every weekday at noon on the dot, there would be a mass exodus from office buildings across the city, as coworkers headed out to grab a meal. Lucky for me, I worked in an area of the city where restaurants were abundant and extremely varied.

One of my absolute favorite lunch options, however, was a Japanese place that served the dish we’re talking about today: Gyudon.

Gyudon is basically a dish of thinly sliced fatty beef, cooked in a slightly sweet mixture of mirin and soy sauce and served over rice. Sake is also sometimes added for extra flavor. It’s truly as simple to make as it looks and yet it makes for a satisfying meal.

Since it’s an simple dish, every ingredient in this recipes plays a very big part for this dish. Let us start with the Thinly Sliced Beef. If you don’t eat beef, you can make this dish with thinly sliced pork as well. Just make sure the meat is thinly sliced.

We headed down to the Japanese grocery stores carry thinly sliced meat (both pork and beef) for the meat. But if you can’t find it in the refrigerated or frozen meat sections, you can purchase a block of meat and slice them on your own.

The next second main ingredient is onion. If you really do not like onion, you can skip; otherwise, please include it. Cooked onions are tender and give sweetness to the sauce. Therefore, I consider the onion just as important as meat in this recipe. You can use regular yellow onion, sweet onion, or even purple onion (if the color doesn’t bother you).

We usually go for homemade sauce, however we decided to give pre-made Gyu-Don sauce a try as our friends always recommend us this brand.

Gyu-Don is honestly the Best. Thing. Ever.

It would warm up as you mixed it in with the hot beef and rice, imparting a richness to the dish that couldn’t be beat––not even by the beckoning call of hand-pulled noodles or Mala hot pot. Needless to say, I frequented that particular spot at least once every couple weeks.

I’ve been seeking to recreate some of our old favorites, and this Gyu-don recipe is definitely one of them! It’s truly as simple to make as it looks and yet it makes for a satisfying meal.

Ingredients |

Neutral oil, such as vegetable or canola oil

2 medium onions, very thinly sliced

1 lb very thinly sliced beef (fatty beef chuck or ribeye)

Gyu Sauce

4 eggs

4 cups cooked short-grain or medium-grain white rice

1 scallion, chopped

2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Method |

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium high heat, and cook the sliced onions for about 10 minutes, stirring often.

Add the beef and sugar, and cook until the beef is slightly browned. Add the gyu-don sauce. Bring to a simmer, and cook for about 10-15 minutes to reduce the stock into a thin sauce. Taste for seasoning, and add a little more soy sauce if needed.

When the beef is done simmering, divide the rice among 4 bowls, and top with the beef and an egg for each bowl. Garnish with chopped scallion and toasted sesame seeds, if using.

I hope you enjoy making this Gyudon recipe! If you try it, don’t forget to share your picture on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with #byplaincanvas. Thank you so much for reading, and till next time!

The idea I began this project is to honor those who were showing support to me through my life and my work. Without this group of people who believe in me, I’m not strong enough to go on so far. We humankind each of us is a special kid, however, everyone was weak as a child. Thus they became stronger each day because people believe in them and allow them to grow.

Therefore, I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things. That’s the thing I want to continue to do to support everyone around!

After approximately 2 weeks we came back from Melbourne, we ultimately classify out the photographs from our gadgets. As to gather our time together and edit them it tougher than we imagined. Especially we jump right back to work the day after our arrival.

Unlike sharing our journey by days, we decided to share our favorite part of the journey through places and trip. Nevertheless, feel free to drop us a message we are happy enough to share with you guys our itinerary.

Before our trip, many highly recommend Queen Victoria Market as the must-visit market in the Victoria, Australia. We wouldn’t be denied it however we just simply prefer the one located at the south of Melbourne – South Melbourne Market. It’s just smaller, a perfect in size with the essentials you need every day. No better way to experience a little bit of the Melbournian’s everyday life than by visiting their local markets.

We found out there is a “To Market To Market Tours” organized by South Melbourne Market, which hosts every third Saturday of the month. We are so fortunate as it happens falls on our traveling dates. It’s just excellent for us hop-by during our weekend morning.

You might be skeptical like us but we highly recommend the tour as it’s worthwhile. It just cost you AU$10 per person includes food samples and a Market bag for a 90 minutes tour. Our lovely guide was a local residential, Jane (sadly we didn’t get a photograph with her). We were been welcomed with a friendly smile, along with many other friendly locals. The tour group was small with a group of 8 including our guide Jane.

We gather in front of the entrance on a chilly Saturday morning. After a short introduction by Jane, we were welcome with a good quality market bag and a piece of banana each – it produces locally and it tastes extremely delicious. It was simply pleasant and so delighted to see all beautiful fresh products.

We meet traders from stores to stores and each of them proudly introduces us their products by gives us samples and tasting bites. (Jane even got a fresh beetroot each from Georgie’s Harvest) With so many varieties of fresh produce in the market, it simply amazing. However, we didn’t purchase them as the rest of the day are all planned out.

One of our favorite part of the market tour is learning this trendy beautiful tea store – Tea Drop. While the store owner treats us their signature tea – Honeydew Green Tea, he explained the beautiful design of the package. Each tea is special in its own way of brewing it and Tea Drop brings out the full potential of each tea.

We meet lots of local traders in the Market from traders to farmers. They share with us their very own specialty and the trip is education and tasteful. We eat fruits, drink some tea, have olives with bread, have a taste with fresh milk, try delicious tapas. You definitely feel a little full after all the tasting.

Last but not least, we end our trip to Aptus Seafood with fresh oysters! Both of us end up with two oysters each. It’s so fresh as compared to those we had at Queen Victoria Market on our arrival. With all the range of condiment they have, you can enjoy the fresh oysters in a different flavor with your tray. That’s the reason we have been heading back to the market, the cheapest and sweetest oyster ever. It only cost you AU$2 each.

The reason we want to highlight South Melbourne Market because we wholly love the Market. We actually head back to the market for a couple of time during our trip. We got some fresh ingredient for cooking, which we will be happy share our recipe with you soon.

With many different pubs, bars, and cafes surrounding the market, it is definitely a place where hipster would want to spend their weekend. Personally, I would definitely shift to the south Melbourne during my next visit. It’s entertaining neighborhood with beautiful houses.

Trip Advice |

Little small tips for you, pick up some brochures at the airport before heading to the city. You can find out many ongoing events during that month/week just like us.

We also highly recommend the tour for those who first time visit the Market, it allows you to have a full grasp of the whole market before you jumping conclusion in purchasing the items. It’s one of the cheapest local Market tours in Melbourne.

We don’t usually complain but do avoid the fusion Dim Sum restaurant Bambu, they have the bad services ever, we had terrible experience while being served by their Staff. While the food is just average standard in with an expensive price tag, it’s nothing compared to the $2 Dim Sum we could have in Singapore.

People might think that it’s still a long way to go but its time to gather your scrapbook for planning. The most beloved festive of the year is coming – Christmas. We love Christmas and each day we just got really busy with the preparation.

While this year I thought of getting garland for decoration, it will definitely bring life to the house. It will be white, silver and green Christmas, unlike the red, golden like last year! You can planned to have some cedar to weave in the finished garland or ended up liking it simple. You would also love that it looks a little wild and unruly.

If your weather is cold and damp this time of year, the fresh greens tend to stay green for a long time. Isn’t that great, we in Singapore couldn’t have that kind of weather. Using this green can also help to frame your walls and doors. It simply keep the place vintage and warm. Clip some images to the garland for a home feel.

Luna Park is not just another amusement park. It’s unique, and loved that it kept that way. Luna Park is a beautiful and fun creation.

This is my very first time to enjoy the rides outside of my country. Seeing all the children running around and playing the rides I though it’s easy. However, I can tell you all the rides is much more scary that what I have back home at Universal Studio Singapore. Still, I get to enjoy most of the rides.

I never stop being a children in heart but physically I think my heart is dead for all the scary rides. Yet I still can’t wait to go back again.

When we first started out making wedges, the one thing we were intimidated by was how to cut potatoes into the perfect shape wedge. Getting them crispy was another insane issue we had. It is actually the complete opposite and they are so easy to make. We prefer them over making fries, and have included step by step photos of cutting the perfect wedge!

I’ll tell you what – these are SO much better than any store bought frozen french fry you can ever buy. Not only that, but next time you go to by those frozen, ready made versions – take a look at the serving size they recommend and tell me if it’s worth it.

If you’re like me and like a big portion – believe me – this recipe is the way to go. Not only are they healthier, but they taste great too!

To have the most perfect potato, halve your potato and then halve EACH half again, so you have 4 pieces. Next HALVE each of those pieces, to make wedges. That’s it.

See? Wedges friends! Season them with your favorites. We use powdered garlic instead of minced but you can use minced if you so desire. Paprika, parsley and plenty of salt follow, because let’s face it, salty potatoes are the best kind of potatoes.

Cut each potato in half length-ways, then cut each half in half length-ways again, and then cut each half in half length-ways again until you have 8 wedges. (Make sure they are about the same thickness and size).

In a small jug, combine the oil, garlic, salt and paprika. Place wedges onto the baking sheets. Pour the oil mixture over the potatoes and toss together to coat evenly. Arrange potato wedges in a single layer on a large baking tray, skin-sides-down. Bake for 35 minutes, turning wedges half way through baking time, until golden, crisp and cooked through when tested with a fork.

Serve with sprinkle of sea salt.

Make them take a photo, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us, anything. More stories on our #stellerstories, we want to see yours! It would make the day!

One of the big trend now, is using bamboo as building material, as high quality Bamboo is reported to be stronger than steel. For all those who are looking for an attractive yet durable option – opt for bamboo flooring. They are not only eco-friendly but are easy to install too.

While it is a building material, you can use bamboo as decoration too. If you believe in minimalism choose for modern bamboo furniture. Redecorate your organizing area by having modern bamboo basket instead of the boring old plastic ones. For all those who want to create a serene environment at home, place bamboo blinds/curtains or waterfalls in your living area. Nevertheless, you can get one of those antique chairs to brighten up your room.

Bamboo is a cost-effective and sustainable material for homes. If preventive measures are taken, products made out of bamboo can last for ages.

Do you want something savory, crispy but salubrious for dinner? You will be in love with Roasted Peppers & Brussels Sprouts, it matches the description above. It’s a very simple dish that requires just a 20 minutes of your time.

This recipe was inspired by a small bowl of Roasted Brussels Sprouts I tasted a couple months ago. With the skin of the Sprouts stayed crispy and within juicy. For those who follow our blog notice that we have a love-hate relationship with Brussels Sprouts. Still, it is still as our favorite ingredients for dishes.

The roast vegetable can be very easy if you manage a few handful of tips. The time, temperature and seasoning. The reason I say so as there is the time we roast vegetable for dinner, we roasted it for too long and it turned out dry with burn smell. Even you manage your time well, if the temperature is too low or high it will not stay crispy and within juicy if you didn’t add enough oil, it then to be very dry and brittle.

Seasoning is always the most important note as nothing will taste good without good seasoning.

Like we say, this is dish this very simple, you just have 3 steps before you indulge it favors. Wash, Cut and Roast them. Isn’t it the most simple things of all? For those who don’t cook, this is as easy as cooking the instant noodle. Try this dish to impress people on your social media.

Brussels sprouts have been one of our favorite ingredient in the past year, as it not only taste good but it’s also a beautiful vegetables. Some promising tips for you while handling this vegetables;

They can stay fresh in the refrigerator for up to a week and a half, so they are good candidates for keeping on hand.

To make sure the leaves are softened and properly seasoned, give them a good massage before adding anything else.

Raw Brussels sprouts love a dressing with fatty and assertive flavors. Remember dress it with lots of olive oil, as it dry up fast.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. In a large bowl, toss Brussels sprouts with 2 tablespoons olive oil, kosher salt and pepper. Transfer the Brussels sprouts to baking sheet and roast, stirring occasionally to ensure even browning, until tender and caramelized, about 20 minutes.

Place Brussels sprouts back in bowl. Add remaining tablespoon olive oil, balsamic vinegar and honey and toss to coat evenly. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary, then serve.

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Words reflect how one individual think, a phase does have more description while a poetry tells stories in lesser words, unlike a novel.

Little I agree with, I’m quite an expressive person. If I wasn’t an artist, I would have become a writer. And, that’s my ways of choosing to communicate.

I’m not sure about people, however, I thought that both arts and literature are in our daily life. You don’t have to be an artist or a writer, everyone embraces them daily and differently, good or bad. As that is a gift that human being possesses, with our capacity to speak and write.

Through my Melbourne trip, I was amazed by wonders and one night upon “Uphill” by Christina Rossetti. I felt that I once experience the similarity back I was a kid. Among us, some of us are afraid of leaving their comfort zone that once you experience top of the hill you will never able to get rid of your mind. We might have lots of fear in the unforeseen journey, but we make mistake and us simple embrace it and it will lead us to an astonishing galaxy.

PS: Can’t wait to get ready the images and post from our trip to share with you folks.

When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite time of year. There was something magical about that spooky night that put electricity into the air for me. Plus, candy, duh.

For me, Halloween wasn’t about the scary things, it was about all the fun that came with the holiday. I loved making caramel apples, sherbert punches, and there were always crafts galore! Of course, as I’ve grown up, I’ve carried that same love of Halloween into adulthood. Except I get to have way more fun with it now.

Since we will be having kids around, we decided to make this Drink Bar a non-alcoholic one. Although one for adult we be much fun. We made some Pumpkin Juice and Nutella bread. All of them is very simple to make, it just took us less than 20 minutes to get them prepared.

One of the highlight for this drink bar is the decoration. The theme color of the drink bar is Purple and Orange.

We came across online having this cheese cloth ghost DIY, and we already can’t wait to made them. As the material is cheap and easy to made. After this drink bar the ghost and used as a light stand. Isn’t that wonderful?

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Hello Readers! We are back from our Melbourne trip and it is the best experience I could ever made. Therefore, we can’t wait to share all the amazing experience with you folks.

If you’ve ever stepped into an American home built in the 1940s or ‘50s. We’re pretty sure we know what you saw and that is pink bathrooms. And we’re not just talking about a simple coat of Ballet Pink. We’re talking pink tile walls and flooring, pink tubs and even pink toilets.

And if the thought of these cotton-candy spaces sends you running for the nearest home improvement store. We’d like to ask you to reconsider. As it turns out, these bathrooms were once quintessential in mid century homes. Moreover, in this fall now there’s a growing movement to save them. Adding little gold element with the pink help modernist the room. For me I also love the combos of pink and marbles, and pink and white tiles. It instantly bright up the whole room.

I have spotted lots of wildflower at there streets and homes of Melbourne’s streets. Since I couldn’t bring them back home, I only can take some pictures of them or even paint them down. The wildflower in Melbourne is all bright and colorful, especially it all smells good. How I wish there are all around Singapore.

The trip in Melbourne is a happy and joyful one. I get to see, eat and experience lots of new things. Although Singapore and Melbourne are both different countries they have their similarities.

Everyone deserve a break or even a party during the Halloween, even the cheese lover. Therefore, we decided to have an Ultimate Halloween Brunch Guide for Cheese Lover. When it comes to the perfect cheese platter, diversity is key.

It’s good to have a variety of cheese. What I mean by that is have a hard, creamy, and then one special or flavored cheese. Then you can build around those three if there’s specific ones you tend to like. It’s important to have those varieties but, ideally, you don’t want more than five cheeses on the board.

Other food can intensify and even change the flavor of cheese, so carefully choose what you serve alongside your platter. A simple water cracker works well, while thicker, biscuit like crackers are ideal with hard cheese varieties. Another popular option is a bread with nuts and fruits, like a pecan-raisin loaf or cranberry-walnut bread.

Grapes make an ideal accompaniment, with red, green or even delicate champagne grapes all being ideal. Brie, camembert and other soft cheeses pair well with white wine. Toasted nuts, dried fruit, quince paste (membrillo), slices of pear, fig cake and date cake are also popular selections.

Since it is Halloween how can we left Pumpkin out, therefore we decided to have some roasted balsamic pumpkin to warm up the palette.

Once you’ve chosen your cheeses and accompaniments it’s time to put the platter together. We chooses a large wooden board, with plenty of room, so that none of the cheeses touch against each other. This will prevent the stronger cheese flavors from interfering with milder tastes.

Don’t cut up all the cheese, leave them in large blocks and arrange your items in groups. To make the platter more visually appealing, try to stick to an odd number of cheeses, such as three for a small gathering, five for a medium get-together, or seven for a large group.

Arrange the cheeses from mildest to strongest, with blues almost always being the strongest cheeses on the plate, followed by washed rind cheeses. Once you have your cheeses arranged, place your platter in the centre of the room, or the table, and let people help themselves.

Some little tips to share with you from our experience;

Remove cheese from the fridge one hour before serving, as the flavor is best when the cheese is at room temperature.

Use the right knife for the right cheese. A knife with holes stops soft cheese from sticking and for hard varieties, a cheese plane will shave off shards and protect fingers.

Provide more than one knife alongside the platter to avoid mixing all the different flavours together.

Many cheeses are made with rennet (a product derived from calf gut). If you are catering for vegetarians it may be wise to include cheese molded in a vegetable source as well.

Since it’s a brunch we decided to have a pumpkin juice as our drink instead of wine. We ended up having a very good cheese palette and all our friends and family enjoyed it. As there is a lot of varieties, everyone get to enjoy it.

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I‘m not really an appetizer person, so when Angela suggested writing about a quick, last minute warm cheese dish appetizer I was a little stumped. I don’t make a lot of appetizers and I didn’t grow up in a family that have them. The warm cheese dishes was pretty much always just about the fondue. Luckily, Angela came through with the idea to do something with baked brie.

And, just so you know, you don’t need a fancy ceramic dish to bake brie. Placing the cheese on a baking sheet works just as well or, better still, a large oven-proof ramekin. Once it’s out of the oven, simply cover with a piece of foil to keep the cheese warm and melty till you’re ready to serve it.

Speaking of which, most folks tend to serve baked brie with some crackers or crusty bread, some fresh fruit or fruit preserves, and a glass of wine (there’s hot debate about whether it should be red or white). As for me, I say ‘just show me the cheese’! Enjoy!

This Baked Brie with Cranberry and Walnuts is so simple and perfect for those who, like me, might be more focused on the side dishes to really think about pre-meal snack foods. Even if you’re not as obsessed with cheese as I am, there’s no way you’re not drooling over that picture above.

The oozing brie with walnut and cranberry. Oh, and the honey! The sweet, sweet honey making everything just a tad more special. Isn’t that the perfect holiday appetizer?

Ingredients |

3/4 cup cranberry sauce

1 16-ounce brie round

1/3 cup cranberries

2/3 cup walnut pieces

3 tbsp of brown sugar

2 tbsp of honey

Method |

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

Remove the top of the rind from the cheese using a serrated knife, and discard the rind. Place the cheese, cut side up on an oven safe plate or bowl. Just make sure to use a larger plate or a bowl so your cheese doesn’t start oozing off the plate like mine is in the above photo. Bake at 200 degrees C for 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and top with the brown sugar. Bake for an additional 5 minutes, or until the cheese is soft and warm.

In a pot warm up the walnuts, cranberries, brown sugar and honey till thick. Drizzle on top of the cheese.

Serve immediately with crackers.

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Don’t you feel warmness especially surrounded with the scent of cinnamon, the taste of pumpkin even with the cold weather? While I always feel happiness everywhere this season since it’s glowing, cozy and shimmering and that is autumn.

It’s an enchanting season around the year – filled with various fiesta and celebration. Beginning with this month there are Halloween, following with Thanksgiving and ultimately everyone favorite, Christmas. It’s always heartwarming to have all kind of celebration with family and friends

Halloween is coming in less than 11 days, although I would missed the opportunity of celebrating it in Melbourne. Therefore, we decided to make some snack for the kiddo in our family. They always have a habit of craving something sugary at the end of there’s meals.

These small sweet bites are the perfect solution for such occurrences. Eating one or two for dessert satisfies my sweet cravings without any guilt, since they are also healthy for me. The right mixture of dates, pecans, pumpkin puree, and coconut flakes gives the balls an almost cookie dough-like texture as you bite into them. This mixture also loads each bite with fiber, antioxidants, and nutrients.

These easy pumpkin pie energy bites are vegan, gluten-free, and required absolutely no baking. Once the ingredients are blended together in the food processor, I recommend putting the dough in the refrigerator. That way it will be easier to work with and shape into balls. Once the balls are formed, you could also roll them in additional chopped nuts or coconut flakes if desired. Then store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

This Pumpkin Energy Ball recipe calls for 1/4 cup of pumpkin puree, so it’s a great way to polish off any leftover canned pumpkin you have on hand from any of these recipes. You can double the batch to use up a bit more if you like, then stash the extras in the freezer, where they will last several months.

Moreover, whichever shape they take, they will be bursting with the deliciously sweet spicy flavors of pumpkin pie. Ending it with some Halloween decoration to make it more interesting for the kids, we make sure they will want more of it.

Place the dates into a small bowl and cover with water. Let soak for 10 minutes, then drain.

Place the pecans into a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Add in the rest of the ingredients, including the soaked dates. Pulse until combined. Adjust the spices to taste. Place into the refrigerator for 30 minutes to chill.

Use your hands to form the dough into small balls. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

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Navy blue is of course a classic that never goes out of style. However, this fall we will be seeing even more of this stunning tone color is fresh and clean. Moreover, it is a bit lighter than the traditional navy blue. Navy Peony is one of my favorite hue for this fall and is a true blue color. It works will neutrals (we love it paired with white) but it also looks modern with tones like millennial pink.

This versatile shade will be everywhere. We love the depth of this color but the versatility is also a great feature of this stunning shade. You might think that navy is boring but it can be anything ranging from classic and traditional to fun and fresh.

Nevertheless it all depends on how and where you use it! Mix it with some metallic tones, bold color, mix and match prints or keep it with the neutrals. Try it in unexpected rooms like a nursery or the kitchen!

Hello friends. Halloween is coming in a few days, have you plan on what to do yet?

So I have been researching on what to do for that day, the food and also clothes. And in my search for the scariest looking costume, I realized nothing is more frightening than the world is now. All the wars, economy and the people. Think I am thinking too much.

Nevertheless, Halloween is all about the trick or treat, and I think everyone of you will be sweet on that day and always. May it be dreadfully creepy and scary and a whole lot of fun.

You guys, I made a mousse. There is no other way to explain it, but to say that I gave in to the pressure. I mean, can you imagine Halloween without a mousse? Didn’t think so.

But…

You may know that I do not make mousse often. Maybe once a year. And it will be an chocolate mousse. But this year we decided with a mousse. A pumpkin mousse. After a moment of sheer panic, I composed myself and decided that I can do it. It might just not be as traditional as you would expect.

And you know what? This is the best Pumpkin Mousse we ever have, everyone loves it.

These Pumpkin Mousse is light and creamy pumpkin mousse that’s a perfect finish to a Halloween dinner. This mousse is made in under half an hour and can be made ahead of time. The time saving dessert you need for the holidays!

Some tips for you to make this mousse;

I doubled the original recipe and changed out the neufchatel cream cheese for regular cream cheese, but feel free to change the cream cheese to whatever kind you typically buy.

If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice or can’t find it, substitute the following for the amount I used: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice.

Surprisingly even my parents were won over with this dessert and I thought it would just be for the sister in the house, HA, I was very wrong! The parents loved it and I had to share. But with only 7 ingredients needed, you can make this anytime at all.

Ingredients |

1 can pumpkin puree

½ can condensed milk

2 ½ cups of heavy cream, divided

2 tps of ground cinnamon

¼ tps of ground nutmeg

2 tbsp of light brown sugar

¼ tps of ground clove

Method |

Place the pumpkin puree, condensed milk, ½ cup of cream, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove into a medium saucepan and stir over medium heat.

Simmer for 5 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and allow the mixture to cool completely and cover with plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator for 2 to 4 hours.

Once the pumpkin mixture has chilled, place the remaining cream into a stand mixer and whip until stiff peaks form, 3-5 minutes. Gently fold the whipped cream (reserving 2/3 cup) into the pumpkin mixture until fully incorporated.

Fill six ramekins (trifle dishes) about 2/3 of the way with the mousse and place in the refrigerator for at least 3 to 4 hours. Top each with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkle of crumbled ginger snaps.

*Note: This is a soft, not stiff, mousse!

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Just one more week to Halloween, although currently we are at Melbourne we couldn’t stop the festival fever. Therefore, we decided to do a collage of some of the recipes we made to celebrate Halloween! Be it clear in makeup or not let celebrate with great food.

One / Hot Apple Cider

Raise your hand if you can tell me what is synonymous with fall. Well, besides the awesome cooler temps and beautiful fall foliage. I’m talking apples, y’all. I love ’em and now’s the best time of year to enjoy them! There’s nothing like warm, spicy apple cider to break the ice when you’re entertaining on a chilly day. This is the first drink that came into my mind for a Halloween gathering.

Two / Baked Honey-crisp Apples

Another dish using apple, other then Hot Apple Cider. You can have a creepy Snow White theme party for your children. This are one of the dishes that is delicious yet fun at the same time. They’re everything that their name implies – sweet and crisp!

Three / Monster’s Crispy Rice

We always wanted to try making one of this. Using the basic recipe with 2 ingredients – Crispy Rice and Melted Marshmallow. After you have done the snack you can be creative with your decoration and create all this amazing and adorable creatures. This is one of the kids favorite.

Four / Juicy Beef Burger

Hmm… You must be thinking isn’t this just a recipe that taste good, how is it related with Halloween? As this Juicy Beef Burger have a thick patty therefore we used a knife to hold the burger together. Isn’t this so cool? But make sure the kids don’t play with the knife.

Five / Cranberries Mojito

The last recommendation is for all the alcoholic lover out there. They might thought that they are drinking blood instead of Cranberries Mojito.

Using all these recipes you can create a Halloween party for both the adult and the children. Now I am going to hunt for a mug of hot apple cider as the weather in Melbourne is so cold.

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This week I want to dedicate this portrait to this amazing girl – Ash, she, is not Supergirl but she is as well. I’ve never missed the charming bright smile on her face, even though she goes through bad bays like everyone else.

A lady that represents sunshine, a fearless cool girl that I ever know – a lady with overloaded of charm. She represents freedom to me, an independent soul I wish I could master from her.

I appreciate spending time with this girl because I know that I could do crazy things with her and without judgment. She is young, beautiful and her athletic spirit always encourage me through mine insane days.

From months of waiting, the wait finally it arrives. In another 2 days, we will be on our flight for our trip to Melbourne. We’ve never once felt that travel was a form of escapism. Setting foot in an entirely brand new foreign land, soaking in new sights and sounds. It’s can be an experience like no other.

We’re definitely looking forward to the outskirts of Melbourne away from crowds like Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula. Since many friends and Instagrammers highly recommend us for its beauty including the food and drink in the regions. Tell us, what’s better than bread, cheese, and wine!

As you know, life has been kind of a roller-coaster lately. It was no better time, really, to get some fresh air, take time out and clear the mind, and so Melbourne we are coming to you – A city that I’ve been meaning to see for the longest, longest time.

In the garden I looked up through the trees at the sky. I have had a strange feeling of being happy. As if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. One says before that everything we see is made out of magic. However I doesn’t agreed with it, as it can be created. Taking an example, for me I create painting about the flower, leaves and also the fox.

Fox is one of the mysterious animal I ever known. They look like a dog but act similar to a cat. The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.

This painting was inspired by @amyrogstad, this women have the most amazing art piece ever. Thanks for the inspiration, I got so much more to catch up.

My love for milk teas is like an extraordinary journey. In my little fancy my ultimate aim is to taste different of them in the world.

I bet not everyone drinks coffee, at least 50% of them drink tea. I enjoyed the discovery of them, from classic English Milk Tea, Earl Grey Milk Tea to Thai Milk Tea is my hobby.

At home, I enjoy mixing a different kind of tea with a various choice of milk. When you blend them, you create different a new chemistry of taste. Don’t you think this glass of Coconut Iced Thai Milk Tea, it tastes as beautiful as it color – it’s definitely healthier than the sweetener Thai Milk Tea. Recently, we have been in love with coconut – coconut milk has been listed to be one of the healthier choices.

OK, now we’re talking.

This recipe is simple, requiring just 5 ingredients (plus water), and is remarkably close to what you’d find in a Thai restaurant. While you can find authentic Thai Iced Tea mixes at the store and online, I’ve found they typically contain dyes and I wanted to keep mine natural, simple and accessible to everyone.

All you really need is black tea (loose leaf or bagged), vanilla extract, a natural sweetener of choice (I used a mix of muscovado sugar and maple syrup), and coconut milk!

Can we just talk about the creaminess going on here? I mean, can we talk about it?

Ingredients |

6 star anise pods

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Sweetened condensed coconut milk

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 1/2 teaspoons loose Ceylon tea leaves

Method |

Bring star anise, turmeric, vanilla, and 5 cups water to a boil; reduce heat to medium and simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat; add tea leaves. Steep 10 minutes; strain and let cool completely. For each serving, pour over ice; stir in condensed coconut milk to taste. Tea will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

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The greatest gift of life is friendship. That’s why I’m blessed to have her in my life all these while. A person that have lots of place in my heart. She taught me to be patient, be thoughtful and give in when I have too. She is amazing because she always makes sense out of me through things I refuse to acknowledge with. Through her words, I learn to understand, to accept what I always don’t. She is a big sister while I’m a baby – while I’m still crawling with my hands, she is reaching out to me with hers.

When she announced getting married, I’m so happy for her however sad to know that a good friend will be away. Soon, she will be going away for a long while, the time we get together will be lesser than we have it now but that doesn’t matter as I will miss her even more. Knowing that she lead a happy life she always wants for, it is enough for me.

Hello folks, it’s the start of a week again. How are you feeling, having Monday blue like me or getting ready to start a brand new week? We all know it’s time for autumn when you walk into the stores. All the clothes looks warm and autumn-ish, with lots of food having pumpkin in it and also decoration for Halloween.

When I start scrolling the Pinterest looking at the autumn related pins, it makes me feel excited. All the pins looks like autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. After scrolling the Pinterest for days, here are some things I love about Autumn that i’m really looking forward to:

The Halloween with the Pumpkins and Candles around the house and more candles. With the cold weather I also get to wear cozy socks, scarves, and Boots. Most importantly get to drink all the hot chocolate and salted caramel that I can as I need to keep myself warm.

It’s finally fall when you get to see all the fall clothes collection in the stores. Although the weather doesn’t feel much different in Singapore but the mood is not. And I am really happy that falls is here. As I get to drink all the warm pumpkin latte I can. In my pass experience it an be cold during the fall which mean I can stay in my cozy bed all day.

Anyway countdown to 11 days to our trip to Melbourne, thus stay tuned for lots of travel post from us. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below, or sharing them on Facebook and Pinterest.

On the 4th of October we celebrate Happy National Taco Day, as it is one of our family food. Among all the tacos our favorite is using beef. A meat lover like us, the chicken could never satisfy us. Moreover, how can you complain about a simple weeknight meal, like these perfect beef tacos (can totally use chicken, too!) that are made from scratch and still on the table in less than 30 minutes.

You can even feel good about ditching the prepackaged taco seasoning, because a) you can always come back to it later, and b) these tacos are just as fast and easy (and dare I say, more delicious).

These homemade tacos really are the best-ever. Rather than having it using ground beef we uses steak for this recipes. We decided to use back the Summer Steak with Coriander Chutney recipes to marinate the beef. As we misses these sweet and juicy beef. These succulent steak recipes are perfect for summer grilling but it’s taste awesome in autumn taco.

Moreover, you does need much ingredient in here. You will only need 4 simple ingredient for the steak which are plain yogurt, coconut cream, hot curry powder and mango chutney.

The mango chutney is sweet, spicy flavor and generous chunks of juicy fresh mango, this traditional chutney is as good as any you’ll get in your local Indian restaurant. Serve it alongside all kinds of curries or with cold ham, chicken or game. It’s fantastic in cheese sandwiches, too.

After the preparation of steak and leaving it marinate in the fridge for 20 minutes we started preparing the taco and the salsa. We have once made a Mixed Salsa and Mango Salsa before, but this time we op-ed for a simple version. We used tomato, onion and coriander, just simply chop them into cubes and put them in a jar. End with squeezing some lime juice in it.

Ingredients |

200g of baby tomatoes

1 red onion

coriander (as much as you need, for us it’s never too much)

2 lime

Method |

Chop the tomatoes and onion into cubes and coriander in smaller pieces. Put them in a jar and add in the lime juice. Leave it in the fridge for at least an hour.

As Angela and I have different preference with with our tacos. Therefore, we decided to have 2 version of beef tacos, one with avocado as base and one with the salsa. I am not a fan with the avocado like my sister, as the taste too creamy for me. Who loves the avocado like my sister?

A little tips for you.

After grilling the beef please do not slice them right away. Leaving the beef aside for 15 minutes allow the juice to be contain it the beef when it’s been slicing up.

Now it time to assemble them together. As even we love vegetable and avocado but we will never stop at this proceed.

Any way one of our favorite rebellious taco moves is to make taco quesadillas instead of the so-last-summer tacos we love. It’s as simple as it sounds – slap a tortilla on a griddle or in a hot skillet, cover it with taco meat, cheese, and another tortilla, and cook until golden and that cheese is all melts. Once the taco quesadilla is cut into slices, we pile all adornments (lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, avocados…you know) right on top and dig in with a fork.

So let’s get back to the tacos. We end with our favorite coriander and lime. Isn’t the tacos beautiful?

Super yummy.

So clearly, the options are endless with this beef taco recipe! It’s a favorite, favorite. Hope you love it, too!

Ingredients |

6 hard shell Tacos

2 medium beefsteak

150g of plain yogurt

75ml of coconut cream

1 tbsp of hot curry powder

4 tbsp of mango chutney

1/2 iceberg lettuce, trimmed and shredded

1 avocado

handful of coriander

lime

Method |

Start by marinating the beef in the fridge for 20 minutes. Bakes the tacos using the temperature and time state on the box.

Place a griddle pan over a high heat and let it get smoking hot. Grilled the beef steak for 3 minutes on each side using garlic, rosemary and butter. For a juicy steak, let it rest for 15 minutes before chopping it into thick slices.

Time to assemble the tacos, start with the lettuce then the sliced avocado or salsa, and then the beef. Granish it with coriander and lime.

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I believe that a true friend is no matter how many years have passed, whether you see another every day, if both parties want to be connected with, it’ll always be connected with.

Remember at least a decade ago while we are still students, nobody will understand why the two of us could associate with. She is an active sportsman while I’m a nerd. None of us have a common hobby I think, little to say I could speak her language. Von(ica) is amazing because of her personality; straightforward, no drama and never care what others think about her. Despite her smart-looking style, she is a super caring person that you could ever ask for. That must be the reason why I cherished her and appreciate her as a friend a lot.

Among our four years of study together, she is my penpals, audience, and healer. Ultimately despite our different path in life, we hardly get to meet and time from the time we connect through the message. This year finally we met up and nothing changes after year which I’m grateful for.

Highly chance she will criticize me for painting this portrait. However, I imagine this just speaks to her so much! Food simply represents her, I believe she is more a foodie than I’m. Therefore, I just thought this portrait is adorable, don’t you?

Many memories just pop up while I’m writing and I’m thankful that we are still connected.

Green Olive maybe a ugly shade to some however this fall it turn from a ugly duckling to a beautiful swan. Love the blend of the olive green – don’t you think that green olive has the glory tone among the greens? With the color on a velvet or treads cloths, it’s turn into a beautiful and elegant one. Moreover with it compliment the color grey, it helps to at a little touch to the room. It’s a great color for this fall as it warm up the room without having it too bright.

Another fun fact for Green Olive’s color – this sewage-tinged hue actually has an important mission. Out of the entire rainbow, experts chose the green-brown shade to discourage smoking. And one look at this swatch will convince you of its habit-breaking abilities. Nevertheless, a color have different sides of itself, like us human. It’s it cool?

Sauces are the greatest invention ever. Among all the different choices what is your favorite? Tomato, Pesto, Cream, Garlic-and-Oil or Meat Sauce? They are the guiltiest thing ever but without them, our life is just tasteless.

One of the best cream sauce would be Tartar Sauce, a classic English cream base for any kind of food and especially seafood. Everything tastes insanely great with tartar sauce and that is the time we stop the diet.

Previously we made Seadog and Fish and Chip at home and therefore we thought that we should also share our version of Tartar sauce. It might not be the best but it is not greasy with lots of the texture from the pickles and red onions. It still has great flavor (tell us if we are wrong).

It’s very simple! As you just have to gather all the ingredients and chop them, mix them, lastly eat them by dipping in all kind of food!

Side note: we love the products from Waitrose, it is affordable and in great quality. Most of their products have lesser salt content or they are organic. You can find most of the Waitrose products in most of the Cold Storage in Singapore. Some bigger store has a larger range but they’ve limited choice compared to the UK. Well, I might change my mind until I go to Melbourne. As lately I have been researching lots of great local market to visit.

Ingredients |

1 cup of Mayonnaise

2 tsp of lemon juice

1/4 tsp of freshly ground black pepper

2 tbsp of finely chopped onion

1/2 cup of finely chopped dill pickles

Method |

Combine everything and give it a good stir.

Like we mentioned above, gather your ingredients and “chop”, “mix”, lastly “eat” them by dipping in all kind of food! We highly recommend chilling for at least 30mins to an hour before having it for your meal.

We hope that you like and as usual take a photo of your version, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us or, anything. It’s a thrill for us to see you trying out our recipe!

It’s time for some fall’s leaves and branches. Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale. Fall time is always a good time for the warm cup of chocolate and pumpkin.

This fall I am counting down to my holiday, it was happy yet stressful. As there is part of me, I can’t leave my work aside. Still I can’t wait for the trip! All the planning, packing and going to airport it’s my favorite things to do.

When fall is coming, kicking summer out on its own. However someday at the mid of September, I will always miss my old friend – Summer. But who doesn’t love holding a cup of hot chocolate or even those cozy sweater? Nevertheless, the Pantone color of the fall is something I can’t miss it.

This year there is a total of 10 Pantone color for the fall and what caught our eyes first is Autumn Maple. It is a blend of tawny and russet, a quintessential autumn color. This is the color I would love having in the whole fall even on my food, as I gave the warmest atmosphere to me. It’s a darker shade of pumpkin that gives a mature feel.

Autumn Maple goes well with different textures and materials such as knitted, fur and checkers. You can have a simple throw-over in Autumn Maple for your sofa and it simply warms up the whole room.

Complete strangers can stand silent next to each other in an elevator and not even look each other in the eye. But at a concert, those same strangers could find themselves dancing and singing together like best friends. That’s the power of music. Thus, when the whole world is silent, the one voice becomes powerful is music.

I listen to all kind of music since young. I listen them in different style and language, and all kind of music influence me differently. That’s the power of music, you don’t have to understand them but feel them.

We love to eat pizza like the Italians. Yet we never ever make a pizza before and how could that be happening? I always thought we at least need to cook and prepare what we eat! One day, I told Joe that I want to challenge to make a Pizza!

I was never a baker for sweets unlike Joe but I thought that I should at least have a try at making a Pizza (it could be a start for baking). We research for recipes and we’ve decided to learn to make the basic pizza dough from Jamie Olivia recipe. It wasn’t as easy like what the recipe stated. As the amount of the flour doesn’t work in the direction given.

Since the recipe didn’t work accordingly, we try to add in more flour generally. We modified a little based on our own touch and gladly it out to be not that bad. That Sunday afternoon was experimental and fun. It took us almost a full day for mixing, kneeling, waiting for it to sit down. Finally, send to the oven baking, before it turns into crispy dough we made.

It is essential that your pizza dough is very thin when it goes into the oven.The edges can be slightly thicker, but you should be able to see some light through the dough (in the center), otherwise you won’t be able to achieve a thin, yet crisp pizza crust. To make the pizza dough you will need;

Ingredients |

300 g of plain flour

1 teaspoon of yeast powder

1 teaspoon of salt

200 ml of warm water

1 & 1/2 tablespoons of oil (I use light olive oil)

Method |

For the dough, pile the flours and 1 level teaspoon of sea salt onto a clean surface and make a well in the center.

Add the yeast and sugar to 200 ml warm water, mix together and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork and a circular movement, slowly bring in the flour from the inner edge of the well and mix into the water. Continue to mix, bringing in all the flour – when the dough comes together and becomes too hard to mix with your fork, flour your hands and begin to pat it into a ball.

Knead the dough by rolling it backwards and forwards, using your hands to stretch, pull and push the dough. Keep kneading for 10 minutes, or until you have a smooth, springy, soft dough.

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place to to prove for 45 minutes, or until doubled in size.

If you want to save time (and be able to make this pizza on a weeknight, which is totally do-able!), this pizza dough can be prepared and frozen ahead of time.

We decided to make Margherita – the most classic pizza but to hard achieve the favor.

I have learned along the way that raw tomato sauces are the way to go. They are also extremely easy! Pureed Hunts canned tomatoes, garlic (minced in my garlic press), a touch of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Whatever you do, avoid putting a thick layer of sauce on the pizza as it will result in a less crisp crust. It should be very thin.

For the best Margherita pizza, you will want to preheat your oven to the highest temperature possible. For my oven, that is 220 C. I allow my baking stone to preheat for at least 30 minutes (regardless of whether my oven is ready as it takes time for your baking stone to come to temperature). The higher the temperature the better. This recipe makes two 10-inch pizzas, and they should be able to properly cook in 7 to 8 minutes at that temperature.

Everything seems worthy when people saying it’s delicious. Joe was surprised with our first try and succeed. Our parent finished pizza right away a from the oven. We did make some mistake for our first try by baking the basil leaves. That should be the last thing you put on it!

Ingredients |

carton of tomato

garlic cloves

tablespoons of tomato puree

mozzarella cheese

Pinch of chilli flakes

Pinch of black pepper

Fresh basil leaves

Drizzle of olive oil

Method |

For the sauce, peel and finely slice the garlic, then pick the basil leaves and finely chop the stalks. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan on a medium-low heat, add the garlic and basil stalks, then cook gently for a couple of minutes, or until the garlic is lightly golden, then add most of the basil leaves, the tomatoes, and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Leave the sauce to tick away for around 20 minutes, or until smooth, breaking up the tomatoes up with a wooden spoon. When the time’s up, taste, and season to perfection.

To assemble the pizzas, divide the dough in half. Wrap one half in clingfilm and freeze for another day. With the remaining half, divide the dough into 4 equal balls.

Flour each dough ball, then cover with clingfilm, and leave to rest for about 15 minutes – this will make them easier to roll it thinly. Dust a clean surface and the dough with a little flour or semolina, and roll it out into a rough circle, about ½cm thick.

Tear off an appropriately sized piece of tin foil, rub it with olive oil, dust well with flour or semolina and place the pizza base on top. Continue doing the same with the remaining dough, dust with a little flour so you can pile them up. Cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge. When you’re ready to cook them, preheat the oven to 250°C. At this stage you can apply your topping: spread the tomato sauce over the base, spreading it out to the edges. Tear over the mozzarella and scatter with the remaining basil leaves. Drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil and add a pinch of salt and pepper.

If you can, cook the pizzas on a piece of granite in your conventional oven – if not, cook them one by one on pieces of tin foil directly on the bars of the oven shelf, towards the bottom of the oven (If you’re going to cook your pizzas on the bars of the oven, make sure they’re not too big – otherwise they’ll be difficult to manoeuvre). Cook for 7 to 10 minutes, until the pizzas are golden and crispy.

“This is delicious”! the happiest words from people who ate your food. We hope that you like and as usual take a photo of your version, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us or, anything. It’s a thrill for us to see you trying out our recipe!

Those wiser ones told me that, “friends are for life.” Definitely, she is one of the friends I cherish the most even though I couldn’t express myself in words. Especially if you ask me to confess in front of a person that how much I admire them, admittedly I feel really embarrassed. Well, you could say that my ego has been messing around.

Fortunately, I’m always blessed that I have her as my friend. Since, She shows me plentiful love in times of trouble, not just in happiness. Telling me the truth that no one has tells me. Believe in what I’m doing and encourage me to my non-realistic dreams.

As compared to her I’m not a good friend – as she is so strong that I couldn’t realize when she needs help. Because these days I felt that I have been a terrible friend that all my focus is all on work. While I missed those time we spent together and talk for hours. I hope that I’m able to be a responsible friend that never disappoint her anymore.

(Sorry for reading my boring story.)

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust

It is always sad to bid goodbye to summer. While, throughout the past 3 months, there definitely are various fun activities, lights, and fireworks that have brought us extraordinary moments.

Thus, I’m not sure if you experience it but Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.

Even though there are so much more to talk about summer but sadly it all come to an end. We want to embrace our last Summer activity this weekend before we come to be regret!

I always love the color yellow, as it’s a bright and fun color. It symbolize sunshine, hope, and happiness, has conflicting associations. Yellow represent warmth and cheerfulness. Seeing yellow also help increased mental activity and muscle energy.

However, to me yellow are stories. It is a story about a yellow duckling. For me, as a painter I transform the sun into a yellow spot. While others transform a yellow spot into the sun.

Don’t ever laugh at me! A few years back, I have yet try Rose Tea Latte before! I don’t think it’s a thing back then. Separately, yes I did and I love both of them very much. The strong sweet fragrance from the Rose and the silky texture of the Latte just make it perfect.

My first ever cup of Rose Tea Latte was served at Everyday Karmakamet back in 2014. I wouldn’t say that it’s the best since then. So far the one that is unforgettable is from Starbucks in Taiwan. I have been trying to replicate the taste of it but I don’t think could but I end up mixing our one.

Don’t you agree that making drinks is always an art? Both of us, we are less professional than the Barista but it’s fun to mess up the kitchen! And we get to drink while making it.

In this recipe you will need Rose Syrup thus rather then buying a whole bottle of it which it’s impossible for us to use finish. We decided to made our own one as we can control the amount needed and not waste it. The rose syrup is a very simple and easy to be made, as you just need 3 ingredients and 10 minutes.

1/2cupsugar

1/4cupwater

1/2cupedible rose petals (dried)

Add the sugar and water into a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook until the sugar dissolves, turn off heat, add the rose petals and steep for 5 minutes. Strain through a fine mesh strainer, pushing on the petals to extract as much of the remaining syrup as possible.

Making a beautiful cup of rose tea is my new favorite source for an energetic pick-me-up. Roses are traditionally associated with love and romance, but have you thought about actually eating a rose? Probably not. Roses are not only good for the soul, they’re also rich in health benefits.

What’s so fancy about rose tea? For the ladies, drinking rose tea helps to reduce pain associated with heavy menstrual cycles and breast tenderness. Rose is also used to help regulate irregular periods and treat infertility. It is also a mood booster. The rose tea helps to relieve depression, tension and stress. (Ah, amen).

Ingredients |

1cupboiling water

2tbspsearl grey loose leaf tea

1tbspedible rose petals (dried)

1cupwhole milk

4tspsrose syrup

edible rose petals and rose dust (garnish)

Method |

Combine the Earl Grey tea with the rose petals, and steep in boiling water for 5 minutes. Discard the tea.

Mix the rose syrup with milk, and froth with a milk frothier to your desired warmth and foam.

While waiting for the tea to brew, I filled my mug with hot water to keep it warm. Just before serving, discard the hot water, and mist the mug with a few sprays of high quality rose water. I sprayed once directly inside the mug, once on the outside, and once from up above.*

Fill your mug halfway with tea, and then add the steamed milk. Garnish with a few dried rose petals. If you’d also like to add some rose dust for garnish, simply add a handful of dried rose petals to a spice grinder, and pulse until they reach a fine powder. Use a fine mesh strainer to give a light dusting of rose powder atop the drink.

We hope that you like and as usual take a photo of your version, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us or, anything. It’s a thrill for us to see you trying out our recipe!

Time flies, and it’s already September. Apologies for all the delays for the past few months. Whatever all these mixed thoughts mean, one thing’s for sure – We’re not going anywhere and we have lots of new and exciting plans for this little space of mine.

Anyway, weekend is around the corner, and what is so exciting then having a party after the tiring week? A party is not a party without a good party hat, so we whipped up some super fun colorful painted ones to celebrate. These are perfect for a colorful party; if you’re planning one of those sometime soon (or if you just want to wear something fun on your head) download the file and let’s get crafting!

Download the party hat file and print it onto white card. Paint your cut with different color and pattern. Cut out each of the hats with a pair of scissors when the paint is dry. Fasten the two ends of the hat together to form a cone.

Cut a piece of elastic long enough to fit under your chin. Punch a small hole in one side of the party hat (towards the base) and insert the piece of elastic through. Tie a knot to secure.

Repeat on the opposite side of the party hat with the other end of the elastic. Glue a pom pom to the top of the party hat with hot glue.

That’s all there is to it – your painted pom pom party hats are ready to show off at whatever fun festivities you’ve got planned! Take a photo of your version, send us an email, tag us on Instagram, tweet us, anything. We love to see you trying out our craft!

Months ago when I painted Kate’s portrait she asked me if I could paint a portrait of her beloved dog, of course, I will and here it’s.

This is the 3rd-4th time I challenge myself to paint an animal again, it’s tricky especially to create the fur like. It’s unlike human with a fair and smooth skin surface. It took me hours and days to understand how should I move my stroke.

It was a great time painting this portrait and I enjoyed the painting process pretty well. I hope both Kate and Emma like it and this is one of the coolest dogs on the earth now!